THE   RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION 
OF   THE  WORLD 


THE  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION 
OF  THE  WORLD 

AN    ESSAY   IN   CONSTRUCTIVE 
PHILOSOPHY 


BY 


ARTHUR  KENYON  ROGERS,  PH.D. 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  BUTLER  COLLEGE 

AUTHOR  OF  "A  BRIEF  INTRODUCTION  TO  MODERN  PHILOSOPHY," 

"A  STUDENTS'  HISTORY  OF  PHILOSOPHY" 


Nefo  gork 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1907 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1907, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  January,  1907. 


Noriuoot) 

J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


Bbs 
£ 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION i 

THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  KNOWLEDGE    ....        6 

THE  VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE 35 

RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY 79 

THE  ARGUMENT  FOR  PURPOSE 93 

THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE        .        .        .121 
THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN     .        .        .        .     151 

THE  NATURE  OF  GOD 176 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM 198 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 231 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY         .        .        .        .261 
INDEX 285 


v 

155845 


THE  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION 
OF  THE  WORLD 

INTRODUCTION 

I  PROPOSE  in  the  following  pages  to  defend  a  view 
of  the  world  which  is  frankly  religious  and  theistic, 
in  opposition  to  certain  modern  types  of  philo- 
sophical thought  which  are  now  widely  prevalent. 
The  results  which  I  shall  advocate  do  not  therefore 
depart  very  far  from  the  presuppositions  which 
underlie  the  ordinary  Christian  consciousness,  when 
these  are  interpreted  not  in  a  dogmatic,  but  in  a 
broadly  philosophical  way.  And  by  the  phrase 
"ordinary  Christian  consciousness"  I  mean  to  ex- 
clude any  sublimated  and  mystical  creed,  or  any 
reconstruction  in  terms  of  merely  practical  ideals, 
and  to  refer  substantially  to  such  a  manner  of  con- 
ceiving the  universe  of  reality  in  its  large  and  essen- 
tial character,  as  the  general  sound  intelligence  and 
common  sense  of  the  religious  community  would  be 
able  to  take  up  in  imagination  with  some  measure 
of  concreteness  and  objectivity,  and  recognize  as  the 
natural  understanding  of  the  historical  Christian 


2  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE    WORLD 

revelation.  I  am  aware  that  by  many  this  coinci- 
dence with  the  common  judgment  will  be  considered 
anything  but  a  recommendation  for  a  philosophical 
theory ;  I  confess  I  think  it,  so  far  as  it  goes,  in  its 
favor.  I  should  indeed  be  sorry  to  appear  to  be 
making  in  philosophy  an  appeal  to  the  mob.  There 
are  questions  which  cannot  be  solved  by  the  doc- 
trinaire method.  Nevertheless,  I  am  strongly  of  the 
opinion  that  anything  like  esotericism  in  a  philosophy 
!  is  prima  facie  proof  of  its  final  inadequacy.  Philos- 
ophy is  not  intended  to  contravene  or  supplantHhe 
^  everyday  experience  of  mankind,  but  to  explain  it, 
and  by  so  doing  to  give  it  a  heightened  value.  The 
contrary  view  is  a  very  old  and  a  very  persistent 
one,  but  it  is  a  heresy  none  the  less.  Plato's  notion 
that  philosophy  is  for  the  favored  few,  and  that  it 
dwells  in  a  realm  apart  from  the  commoner  expe- 
riences of  life,  still  finds  wide  acceptance.  There  is 
an  inveterate  pride  of  intellect  which  tends  to  prize 
a  belief  in  proportion  as  it  is  shared  only  with  a 
limited  number,  and  is  unintelligible  to  the  mass 
of  men.  There  is  a  certain  prestige  in  having 
shaken  one's  self  loose  from  the  company  of  the 
multitude.  And  this  is  helped  out  by  the  subtle 
delusion,  dangerous  because  it  is  the  perversion  of  a 
truth,  that  the  right  attitude  in  philosophy  is  one  of 
detachment  from  all  interests  whatever,  the  attitude 
of  the  rare  spirit  who  stands  forth  as  a  God  holding 
no  form  of  creed,  but  contemplating — and  criticising 
—  all  alike  with  equal  unconcern.  To  adopt  a  high 


INTRODUCTION  3 

attitude  of  disinterestedness,  to  make  truth  alone 
our  end  and  disclaim  any  preference  for  one  conclu- 
sion rather  than  another,  is  a  characteristic  note  in 
recent  times,  and  it  has  a  plausible  sound.  But  in 
my  opinion  the  whole  attitude  is  likely  to  be  a  mis- 
taken one.  /No  man  can  philosophize  rightly  who 
has  no  personal  concern  in  the  common  hopes  and 
fears  and  ideals  and  beliefs  of  men,  and  the  pro- 
fession of  this  is  either  an  affectation  or  a  limitation. 
If  the  philosopher  stood  apart  from  his  race  and 
were  thinking  out  a  merely  private  scheme  of  life 
for  himself,  it  might  be  tolerated  in  him.  But  he  is 
doing  nothing  of  the  sort.  It  is  the  experience  of 
man  on  which  he  is  building.  And  if  he  allows  his 
own  individual  obtuseness  to  certain  aspects  of 
human  experience,  the  failure  of  these  to  appeal  to 
him  personally  or  as  member  of  a  little  coterie,  to 
limit  his  range,  he  does  so  at  his  peril.  The  attitude  j 
of  disinterested  spectator  simply  cannot  be  assumed  I 
in  philosophy,  if  indeed  it  can  anywhere  in  life.  1 
Of  course  one  must  always  be  ready  to  look  every 
fact  in  the  face  and  take  it  for  what  it  is  worth.  But 
to  assume  a  position  outside  the  world's  life  and 
make  it  simply  a  subject  on  which  to  exercise  one's 
skill  in  dialectic,  careless  what  the  issue  may  be,  is  to 
take  the  wrong  path  at  the  start.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  cease  to  be  a  man  in  order  to  become  a  philosopher. 
Philosophy,  once  more,  is  the  interpretation  of  the 
value  of  our  common  experience.  And  the  man  who 
does  not  feel  the  value  of  that  experience  is  by  the 


4  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

very  fact  incapacitated  for  dealing  with  it,  in  any  save 
a  minor  and  critical  way. 

And  now  since,  individually,  we  all  are  certain  to 
be  one-sided  and  to  exalt  minor  aspects  overmuch, 
there  is  no  way  of  testing  ourselves  that  can  dispense 
with  the  necessity  of  coming  back  continually  to  the 
wider  experience  of  mankind  —  not  of  philosophers 
merely,  but  of  the  common  man.  For  although 
philosophers  find  it  hard  to  realize  the  fact,  thejife 
of  thought  is  a  highly  artificial  one.  It  inevitably 
tends  to  stunt  certain  sides  of  the  normal  life  and 
shift  the  balance  of  its  estimates  of  worth.  And  in 
mere  logic  there  is  no  power  to  correct  the  fault. 
i  Logic  is  very  useful  in  setting  in  order  the  things  we 
[are  already  inclined  to  accept.  But  it  has  little  to 
say  as  regards  what  we  shall  consider  important  in 
the  first  place.  Indeed,  the  more  we  depend  upon 
logic  and  logic  alone,  the  more  certain  we  are  to  find 
'ourselves  apart  from  the  main  stream  of  human 
life,  for  the  reason  that  the  conscious  premises 
•  from  which  any  of  us  start  are  very  unlikely  to  repre- 
/  sent  more  than  a  small  fraction  of  the  truth ;  and  by 
excluding  the  saving  inconsistencies  by  which  most 
men  temper  the  strictness  of  their  logical  deductions, 
we  fail  of  any  corrective  to  our  natural  narrowness. 
This  is  indeed  one  chief  service  that  strict  logical 
consistency  has  to  perform  in  the  history  of  thought. 
It  leads  the  philosopher  into  paradox,  and  that 
paradox  makes  other  men,  if  not  the  philosopher 
himself,  go  back  upon  his  premises.  The  fact  that  a 


INTRODUCTION  5 

conclusion  which  is  repugnant  to  the  natural  sense 
of  mankind  has  a  strict  logical  justification,  instead 
of  proving  the  truth  of  this  opinion,  only  serves  to 
call  out  the  recognition  that  premises  leading  to  such 
a  result  must  be  one-sided,  and  so  sends  men  back  to 
a  wider  experience  to  correct  them. 

These  statements  will  need  to  be  more  fully  ex- 
plained and  grounded,  and  to  do  this  there  will  be 
necessary  a  somewhat  careful  inquiry  into  the  nature 
of  knowledge,  belief,  and  truth.  Before  therefore 
any  attempt  is  made  to  deal  directly  with  the  main 
issue  of  the  present  essay  —  the  validity  of  religion 
and  religious  knowledge  —  I  shall  turn  to  this  pre- 
liminary problem,  in  order  to  be  able  more  justly  to 
compare  religious  knowledge  with  other  objects  of 
human  belief,  and  to  decide  what  its  claims  to  accept- 
ance are. 


THE   FOUNDATIONS    OF   KNOWLEDGE 

IF  then  we  go  back  to  the  presuppositions  of  all 
knowledge,  we  shall  find  —  for  the  first  and  perhaps 
for  the  last  time  —  a  point  on  which  thinkers  of  very 
opposite  schools  are  nowadays  practically  agreed. 
There  was  a  time  when  it  was  very  generally  thought 
that  men  come  into  the  world  with  a  certain  amount 
of  knowledge,  ready-made,  in  their  minds.  This 
went  by  the  name  of  innate  ideas,  and  had  to  do 
more  particularly  with  various  rather  lofty  and  ab- 
stract metaphysical  and  religious  truths,  with  perhaps 
some  moral  maxims  thrown  in.  There  is  a  way  in 
which  this  old  belief  may  be  interpreted  and  still 
represent  an  important  truth;  but  as  originally 
meant  it  is  now  pretty  generally  discarded.  Philoso- 
phers are  now  with  few  exceptions~agreed  that  what- 
ever knowledge  man  possesses  comes  to  him  directly 
or  indirectly  on  the  basis  of  or  in  connection  with  that 
plain,  everyday  form  of  experience  which  is  called 
sense  experience.  Apart  from  sensation,  —  which 
need  not  here  be  sharply  distinguished  from  the 
larger  and  more  indefinite  term  "feeling,"  —  what 
we  call  experience  would  be  contentless  and  non- 
existent ;  and  this  applies  to  the  most  exalted^objects 
that  enter  into  thought  as  truly  aTtVtKTmost  lowly. 
Let  any  one  after  some  psychological  training  attempt 

6 


THE  FOUNDATIONS    OF  KNOWLEDGE  7 

to  exclude  resolutely  and  entirely  from  any  content 
of  his  thought  whatever  can  be  traced  back  to  this 
source,  and  he  can  scarcely  fail  to  realize  very  quickly 
the  force  of  such  a  claim. 

Of  course  this  assumption  which  we  are  taking  as 
a  starting-point  is  a  far  simpler  one  than  most  per- 
sons would  consider  we  have  a  right  to  make. 
People  generally  at  the  present  day  would  regard  as 
equally  certain  with  the  existence  of  sense  experi- 
ences a  number  of  further  facts  or  theories  about 
them.  For  example,  they  would  agree  that  sensa- 
tions are  all  to  be  carried  back  to  some  particular 
condition  of  what  is  called  a  body  or  nervous  struc- 
ture, and  that  at  least  some  of  them  have  as  their 
occasion  a  remoter  physical  cause  which  lies  outside 
the  body  and  acts  upon  it.  It  is  never  safe,  however, 
to  take  too  many  things  for  granted  at  once,  and  it 
will  therefore  be  well  to  make  our  original  assump- 
tions as  little  complex  as  possible,  and  to  proceed 
from  these  by  steps  which  are  sufficiently  cautious 
and  gradual  to  avoid  any  unnecessary  risk  of  confu- 
sion. And  it  should  perhaps  be  pointed  out  that,  in 
calling  the  existence  of  sensation  a  primitive  and  in- 
dubitable fact  of  knowledge,  I  do  not  mean  to  imply 
that  I  think  there  was  a  time  when  the  recognition  of 
such  bare  sense  experiences  represented  all  the  knowl- 
edge that  we  possessed,  and  that  everything  else  we 
now  take  for  knowledge  was  later  added  on  to  this,  and 
has  in  consequence  a  secondary  degree  of  certainty. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  conscious  recognition  of  sensa- 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


8  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

tion  as  such  in  its  distinction  from  other  things  is 
almost  certainly  a  late  achievement  of  human  reason, 
and  involves  a  considerable  effort  of  abstraction. 

*  And  in  speaking  of  a  starting-point  or  presupposition 
>  it  is  not  to  be  understood,  either,  that  we  are  trying 
to  empty  our  minds  of  absolutely  everything  beside, 
in  order  to  let  this  one  truth  rest  solely  upon  its  own 
bottom.  It  is  indeed  clearly  an  impossibility  that 
we  should  strip  off  all  the  later  and  hard-won  accre- 
tions of  our  rational  experience,  and  come  to  any  pre- 
supposition in  our  original  nakedness,  accepting  it  in 
entire  independence  of  other  and  related  assumptions. 
What  we  do,  what  indeed  we  are  compelled  to  do,  is 

.;  >  rather  this :  We  approach  our  inquiry  with  the  mental 
*  A  structure  and  the  general  way  of  looking  at  things  of 

11  which  we  find  ourselves  naturally  possessed  as  the 

ij  outcome  of  human  evolution.  This  is  all  the  mind 
and  all  the  knowledge  we  have  and  we  must  needs 
make  use  of  it  if  we  are  to  get  ahead  at  all.  In  the 
light  of  this  our  large  inheritance  we  then  proceed  to 
analyze  and  examine  more  minutely  the  more  detailed 
features  of  our  intellectual  content.  And  if  we  find 
any  point  which  is  clearly  a  fundamental  assumption 
in  our  world  of  knowledge,  which  is  so  intimately 
worked  into  the  accepted  universe  that  it  could  not 
be  withdrawn  without  tumbling  the  whole  structure 
down  upon  our  heads,  we  feel  ourselves  justified  in 
taking  this  as  a  datum.  Such  a  datum  we  seem  to 
find  in  the  bare  fact,  which  scepticism  has  no  ap- 
parent interest  hi  disputing,  that  out  of  the  depths 


THE   FOUNDATIONS   OF  KNOWLEDGE  9 

of  the  unconscious  there  do  well  up  these  jacts  of 
immediate  feeling  or  sensing  which  are  the  basis  and 
the  starting-point  of  all  that  we  call  the  conscious  life. 
It  is  hard  to  see  how  one  can  refuse  to  accept  this 
without  putting  himself  altogether  outside  our  com- 
mon system  of  knowledge  and  of  human  discourse. 
There  is  now  one  aspect  of  such  experiences,  or 
at  least  of  some  among  them,  which  is  also  relatively 
simple  and  immediate.  And  since  this  will  be  of 
importance  presently,  it  is  well  to  speak  of  it  here. 
It  is  a  peculiarity  of  what  we  learn  to  call  sense  per- 
ception that  it  comes  to  us  as  in  a  very  considerable 
measure  a  thing  inevitable,  out  from  under  our  direct 
control,  independent  and  compulsive.  In  this  it 
differs  from  certain  other  forms  of  our  mental  life 
which  are  or  seem  to  be  more  within  our  own  power. 
Thus  a  thought  or  a  memory  can  within  certain  very 
considerable  limitations  be  called  up  at  any  time  or 
dismissed  from  the  mind  again  and  forgotten. 
Similarly,  we  may  determine  for  ourselves  with  more 
or  less  practical  success  whether  an  emotion  is  or 
is  not  to  dominate  us.  But  there  is  a  difference 
which  we  naturally  feel  in  the  case  of  perception. 
The  eye  cannot  choose  but  see,  whenever  it  is  open 
to  gaze  upon  the  object  in  its  presence,  while  no  effort 
of  will  can  produce  the  full  experience  of  sensing 
unless  certain  conditions  which  we  cannot  ourselves 
directly  create  are  favorable.  For  the  present  it  is 
enough  to  note  this  characteristic  of  sensations ;  what 
it  implies  may  be  left  to  be  considered  later. 


10          RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

But  now  we  never  could  by  any  chance  have  be- 
come aware  of  the  distinction  that  has  just  been 
mentioned  were  it  not  for  another  and  very  funda- 
mental aspect  of  experience.  It  would  be  possible 
to  conceive  an  experience  which  consisted  practically 
of  nothing  more  than  a  confused  and  tumultuous 
upheaval  of  evanescent  waves  of  feeling,  connected 
by  no  principle  of  relatedness  or  law  of  order.  But 
such  an  experience,  if  it  could  exist,  would  be  abso- 
lutely blind  and  irrational,  and  quite  unlike  anything 
we  understand  by  the  word.  For  there  is  of  course 
this  second  and  obvious  characteristic  of  experience 
as  we  mean  the  term:  that  sensations  show  certain 
regularities  in  their  way  of  appearing,  by  means  of 
which  we  are  able  to  anticipate  the  probable  course 
of  events. 

Tlu^regularitv^r  order,  or  law  of  succession 
among  sensations  is,  as  any  one  can  easily  see,  an  im- 
mensely important  aspect  of  knowledge.  By  making 
experience  calculable  it  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the 
entire  rational  life,  the  life  which  acts  consciously 
according  to  preconceived  ends.  But  now  there  is 
still  another  very  significant  feature  of  the  situation 
which  comes  to  light  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  examine 
carefully  this  fact  of  order.  If  the  question  is  asked 
how  we  ever  come  to  recognize  the  order  which  exists 
among  sensations,  the  first  and  most  natural  answer 
perhaps  would  be  that  the  order  is  there,  and  being 
there  is  bound  to  make  an  impression  on  us  and 
compel  its  recognition.  But  it  is  not  at  all  clear  that 


THE   FOUNDATIONS   OF   KNOWLEDGE  II 

this  would  be  a  sufficient  answer.  The  world  in 
which  we  live  is  inconceivably  complex.  It  is  far  \ 
from  being  true  that  the  order  in  it  stands  out  plain  \ 
and  unmistakable  to  the  passive  and  uninquisitive  ; 
gaze.  A  few  sequences  might  force  themselves 
automatically  on  our  notice.  But  the  number  of 
these  would  at  best  be  very  small,  and  out  of  all 
proportion  to  the  enormous  mass  of  irregularities 
and  failures  of  sequence  which,  to  one  who  is  not 
already  in  possession  of  the  clew,  must  make  an  im- 
pression of  the  merest  jumble.  We  are  at  the 
present  day  so  indoctrinated  with  the  idea  of  law 
and  undeviating  order  in  the  world  that  we  may 
come  to  take  it  as  self-evident  and  unimpeachable. 
We  fail  to  remember  that  the  conception  of  law  as 
at  all  widespread  or  universal  has  come  into  exist- 
ence by  a  process  which  we  still  can  trace.  Or,  again, 
we  fail  to  notice  how  much  of  the  idea  to-day  rests 
upon  the  assertions  of  other  men  whose  authority 
we  have  been  taught  to  respect,  and  how  these  as- 
sertions in  turn  go  back  to  a  weight  of  evidence 
the  larger  part  of  which  they  have  themselves  had  to 
take  on  trust.  And  even  in  the  case  of  sequences 
which  we  consider  are  sufficiently  founded  in  our 
own  experience,  we  seldom  realize  in  how  large 
measure  they  are  the  outcome  of  a  pious  faith,  and 
how  constantly  we  should  find  them  unrealized  and 
contradicted  by  the  facts  were  we  to  stop  with  first 
appearances,  and  the  natural  impressions  which 
these  would  produce  if  we  approached  them  wholly 


12         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF   THE    WORLD 

without  bias.  We  certainly  never  have  examined 
more  than  the  minutest  fraction  of  all  the  instances 
that  occur.  And  almost  as  certainly  have  we  once 
and  again  met  with  cases  where  the  expected  proced- 
ure failed  to  come  about.  When  this  happens,  we 
are  quick,  it  is  true,  to  declare :  Yes,  but  there  was 
some  good  reason  for  it;  there  were  complicating 
circumstances  which  entered  in  and  turned  aside 
the  natural  course  of  things.  But  the  point  is  that 
this  is  possible  only  as  we  go  behind  the  first  ap- 
pearances, and  actively  make  an  endeavor  to  in- 
troduce order  into  the  world  whether  we  find  it 
there  or  not.  Of  course  we  shall  have  an  ordered 
world  if  we  assume  to  start  with  that  order  is  there, 
and  then  when  it  fails  to  appear  refuse  to  allow  this 
to  affect  our  faith,  but  come  forward  at  once  with  the 
new  assumption  that  the  customary  would  have 
happened  as  usual  if  some  special  hindrance  had  not 
stepped  in  to  prevent.  And  the  fact  that  we  have 
to  do  this  so  constantly  makes  it  evident  that  the 
highly  organized  and  orderly  world  of  our  experience 
is  not  something  merely  forced  upon  us  mechanically 
by  the  facts. 

The  new  element,  therefore,  which  we  have  to 
recognize  as  playing  an  essential  part  in  the  building 
up  of  experience,  is  that  constructive  or  selective 
aspect  of  our  mental  processes  of  which  recent 
psychology  takes  so  much  account.  The  multitude 
of  impressions  at  every  moment  raining  in  upon  the 
human  organism  would  be  absolutely  bewildering 


THE    FOUNDATIONS   OF  KNOWLEDGE  13 

and  disconcerting  were  it  not  that  we  are  so  con- 
structed as  to  be  able  to  shdUhe_majority_of  them, 
refuse  them  our  attention,  while  we  pick  out  the 
ones  that  are  more  directly  related  to  our  needs  and 
interests.  A  living  creature  is  not  a  mere  mass  of  clay 
to  take  dents  passively  and  indiscriminately  wherever 
it  comes  in  contact  with  some  external  prod.  It 
is  fundamentally  active  and  selective,  continually  in 
a  state  of  tension,  highly  sensitive  in  certain  special 
directions  and  ready  to  respond  the  moment  the  right 
stimulus  makes  its  appearance,  while  ignoring  what- 
ever is  irrelevant. 

Now,  if  this  is  true  even  in  connection  with  the 
mere  coming  and  going  of  sensations  in  our  ex- 
perience, it  is  perhaps  clearer  still  as  an  account  of 
the  way  in  which  we  learn  to  recognize  the  laws  of 
connection.  The  basis  of  our  whole  intellectual  con- 
struction of  an  organized  world  would  thus~Fe>  found 
in  the  existence  of  tendencies  and  needs  summed 
up  in  the  bodily  structure,  and  the  selection  of  such 
material  of  knowledge  as  is  suitable  for  satisfying 
these  needs.  Even  admitting  that  the  order  of  events 
is  much  more  obvious  than  it  really  is,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  get  away  from  the  psychological  need  of 
some  occasion  for  noticing  facts  of  order  in  particu- 
lar. A  consciousness  spread  over  the  whole  universe 
would  be  a  consciousness  of  nothing.  If,  now,  we 
consider  the  human  organism  as  affected, for  example, 
by  hunger,  such  an  occasion  is  at  hand.  Cer- 
tain connected  sensations  —  color,  movement,  noise, 


14         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

taste,  and  the  like  —  will  flash  out  from  the  dim  uni- 
formity of  the  surrounding  void,  brought  into  a 
passing  partnership,  and  raised  to  the  level  of  con- 
sciousness, by  their  common  relation  to  the  absorbing 
act  of  getting  food.  Nor  does  this  recognition  stop 
with  itself.  The  essence  of  order  in  the  world  is  not 
merely  the  discovery  of  a  particular  and  present 
sequence,  but  the  taking  of  this  asji_sec[uence  that  is 
going  to  be  repeated  in  the  future  and  become  a  gen- 
eral rule  on  which  calculations  can  be  based.  Now, 
when  hunger  has  once  been  satisfied  under  the  con- 
ditions of  an  observed  sequence,  there  is  naturally 
going  to  be  a  certain  predilection  for  this  sequence 
when  one  is  hungry  a  second  time.  Implicitly 
he  will  assume  that  the  same  things  are  going  to 
happen  again  that  happened  before,  for  the  very 
good  reason  that  he  has  a  direct  practical  interest  in 
wanting  them  to  happen.  It  may  be  that  he  will 
be  disappointed,  and  then  after  a  few  trials  it  is  likely 
that  he  will  forget  his  earlier  experience.  But  it  is  in 
I  the  nature  of  things  that  whatever  has  once  issued 
•successfully  in  the  satisfaction  of  some  need  of  life 
will,  more  or  less  dimly  perhaps,  be  anticipated  and 
looked  for  whenever  the  same  need  later  demands 
expression. 

The  world  of  our  experience  therefore  becomes 
organized  fundamentally  after  the  pattern  marked 
out  by  the  needs  of  human  nature  which  require 
satisfaction.  Its  order  is  originally  an  assumption 
made  by  us  because  it  is  practically  worth  our  while 


THE   FOUNDATIONS    OF  KNOWLEDGE  15 

to  make  it.     If  we  did  not  take  for  granted  that  things  \\ 
happen  in  certain  regular  ways  long  before  we  can   \ 
justify  our  belief  on  anything  like  approved  logical 
principles,  we  should  never  come  to  the  recognition 
of  regularity  at  all.    We  should  expiate  our  caution  ' 
by  a  speedy  extermination  in  favor  of  other  beings 
of  a  less  admirable  and  unbending  logic.     And  there 
seems  no  reason  to  hunt  for  any  essentially  different 
explanation  of  the  more  generalized  and  intellectual 
aspects  of  the  belief  in  law  and  organization.    Such 
a  belief  evidently  goes  far  beyond  the  bare  facts  of 
experience.    To  demonstrate  empirically  the  univer-  r 
sality  of  law,  or  even  the  universality  of  some  par-  ) 
ticular  law  like  the  law  of  gravitation,  is  an  entire  ; 
impossibility.    It  is  only,  once  more ,  through  assuming  ' 
this  at  the  start,  and  then  setting  to  work  laboriously 
to  substantiate  it  by  hunting  out  hidden  connections 
and  explaining  away  apparent  exceptions,  that  we 
are  enabled  to  make  headway  at  all  against  the  com- 
plicated and  inveterate  disorder  of  the  world  as  at 
first  it  shows  itself.    And  if  we  ask  why  the  assump- 
tion is  made,  again  there  seems  no  better  reason  to 
give  than  that  we  are  so  constituted  that  we  need 
to  make  it.    We  could  notjive  m_a  world  in_which 
we  found  no  regularities  of  connection,  and  so  the 
will  to  live  spurs  us  on  to  postulate  the  order  we 
recjuire  on  the  chance  of  finding  it  actual,  since  only 
by  making  active  search  for  it  could  in  any  case  the 
chance  come  true. 
Now,  of  course  this  assumption  that  the  future  will 


1 6        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

more  or  less  resemble  the  past  would  be  quite  useless 
were  it  not  that  it  is  in  some  degree  borne  out  by 
the  facts.  And  accordingly  we  need  to  combine 
with  this  tendency  of  ours  the  other  point  that  has 
been  already  noted,  in  order  to  get  an  account  that 
will  be  true  to  experience.  The_  disco  very  of  order 
necessitates  an  active  process  of  anticipation  and 
selection  on  our  part.  But  this  does  come  home 
to  us  naturally  as  a  process  of  discovery,  and  not  of 
outright  creation.  The  other  aspect  of  experience 
also  remains  valid,  according  to  which  what  actually 
happens  appears  in  the  last  resort  to  be  inevitable 
and  out  from  under  our  control.  Anticipation  and 
selection  on  our  part  are  always  subject  to  the  final 
test  of  fact,  and  for  this  we  have  to  wait  in  a  humble 
and  receptive  spirit.  We  may  in  part  choose  the 
conditions  under  which  experience  shall  arise ;  other- 
wise there  would  be  no  value  to  anticipation.  But 
those  conditions  given,  one  sensation  follows  another 
with  the  character  of  fate ;  it  pays  not  the  slightest 
heed  to  what  we  may  happen  to  wish.  The  recog- 
nition of  order,  then,  rests  upon  free  initiative  and 
selective  will,  but  the  quality  of  inevitableness  still 
remains  in  the  result.  The  anticipation  is  declared 
to  be  sound  or  unsound  by  the  outcome,  and  this  it 
is  not  for  us  to  decide  ourselves.  Do  the  best  we 
can,  there  comes  a  point  when  the  issues  are  taken  out 
of  our  own  hands.  We  have  simply  to  trust  ourselves 

I  to  the  stream  of  experience,  which  carries  us  whither 

I  it  will. 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  OF   KNOWLEDGE  17 

So  far  there  has  nothing  been  directly  involved  in 
the  analysis  of  knowledge  and  its  content  which 
could  not  be  put  for  each  one  of  us  in  terms  of  our 
sense  experiences  and  the  connections  which  hold 
between  them.  Coming  home  to  us  as  these  do  in 
an  immediacy  of  feeling,  they  seem  to  lie  beyond  the 
reach  of  a  scepticism  which  is  deserving  of  much 
attention  on  the  part  of  sane  and  reasonable  beings. 
And  if  we  were  content  to  keep  knowledge  within 
these  limits,  we  should  have  blocked  out  a  certain 
particular  philosophy  which  would  be  not  incapable 
of  a  reasoned  justification,  and  which  would  have 
at  least  this  advantage,  that  it  would  do  away  at  one 
blow  with  a  multitude  of  puzzling  questions  with 
which  in  the  past  philosophy  has  conceived  itself 
bound  to  grapple. 

But  this  does  not  completely  represent  what  we 
believe  naturally  and  spontaneously  about  the  real 
world.  Quite  apart  from  our  sensuously  based 
experience  and  the  sequences  and  harmonies  which 
obtain  there,  most  men  will  unhesitatingly  grant 
that  there  is  a  great  field  of  objects  which  we  have 
reason  to  believe  exist,  and  about  some  of  which  we 
possess  a  fund  of  more  or  less  adequate  information, 
but  which  nevertheless  have  a  being  of  their  own 
that  is  affected  but  little  by  our  knowledge  of  them, 
and  which  will  still  continue  after  our  brief  lives  — 
some  of  them  in  all  likelihood  after  all  human  lives  — 
have  come  to  an  end. 

Such  a  belief  is,  then,  natural  and  practically  uni- 


1 8          RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

versal,  but  it  may  be  granted  that  it  goes  a  step 
beyond  anything  that  it  has  yet  appeared  necessary 
to  entertain.  Hitherto  everything  has  been  capable 
of  being  put  in  terms  of  immediate  and  person- 
ally verifiable  experience.  But  such  objects  as  we 
are  now  called  upon  to  accept  stand  on  a  different 
footing.  By  hypothesis  they  do  not  form  a  part  of 
our  immediate  experience  as  such,  in  the  sense  of 
being  bodily  identified  with  it.  In  order  to  get  to 
them  we  have  to  take  apparently  a  leap  in  the  dark. 
How  are  we  able  to  do  this?  Why  should  we  not 
be  content  to  stay  within  the  narrow  circle  of  light 
where  we  come  directly  into  contact  with  the  real? 
Or  if  we  do  try  to  get  outside  this  immediacy,  how 
are  we  ever  possibly  to  find  our  way  ?  How  can  we  tell 
when  we  hit  our  object  and  when  we  miss  it  ?  how  de- 
termine what  of  our  supposed  knowledge  is  adequate 
and  what  mistaken,  since  the  reality  stands  out-there 
in  its  isolation  and  never  comes  within  experience  to 
be  tested? 

In  connection  with  the  difficulty  in  answering  such 
questions  as  these  there  has  come  into  vogue  a  phil- 
osophical attitude,  more  especially  in  recent  times, 
which  will  need  to  receive  here  some  attention. 
It  certainly  would  be  the  easiest  answer  to  these 
problems  if  we  were  able  simply  to  deny  their  rele- 
vancy. And  we  could  do  this  if  we  refused  to  admit 
that  conception  out  of  which  they  all  grow  —  the 
conception  of  an  object  outside  of  experience  and 
merely  represented  in  our  knowledge  indirectly. 


THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF  KNOWLEDGE  19 

Why,  so,  roughly,  the  argument  runs,  should  we  think 
it  necessary  to  go  outside  the  actually  experienced 
facts?  Indeed,  what  possible  meaning  even  could 
reality  have  for  us  except  as  it  is  experienced  reality? 
And  could  it  concern  us,  either,  in  any  vital  way  ? 
Take  these  supposed  external  things.  Are  we  in- 
terested in  trees  and  houses,  chairs  and  tables,  as 
mysterious  metaphysical  entities  self-enclosed  in 
their  own  skins,  or  are  we  interested  'in  the  concrete 
personal  experiences  in  which,  as  facts  of  immediate 
sensuous  feeling,  or  in  terms  of  thoughts  or  instru- 
ments of  ideal  guidance  and  orientation,  these  objects 
enter  directly  into  our  lives  and  stand  to  us  for  divers 
satisfactions  and  realizations  of  desire  ?  If  this  last, 
then  why  trouble  ourselves  to  look  farther  and,  it 
would  seem  altogether  likely,  to  fare  worse  ?  These 
concrete  experiences  are  here  undeniably,  and  noth- 
ing can  take  away  from  their  reality.  Why  should 
we  double  their  existence  to  no  valuable  end  ?  Why 
not  hold,  as  indeed  science  —  the  science  alike  of 
things  and  of  the  mind  —  tends  to  suggest,  that  it 
is  human  experience  which  creates,  not  reveals 
simply,  the  world  in  which  we  live?  Just  as  the 
seemingly  so  substantial  fabric  of  social  customs  and 
institutions  is  in  truth  no  original  and  independent 
fact,  but  the  gradual  construct  of  human  reactions, 
built  up  bit  by  bit  through  accretions  of  experience, 
so  we  may  equally  well  interpret  even  the  world  of 
nature.  Did  really  the  sun  shine  before  there  were 
eyes  to  see  it  ?  But  for  science  light  is  a  fact  of  ex- 


2O  RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION  OF   THE   WORLD 

perience,  not  possible  till  certain  special  organic  con- 
ditions were  attained.  The  actual  sun,  in  all  our  com- 
mon acceptation  of  the  word,  in  all  that  it  means  to 
us  for  practical  purposes,  does  actually  change  with 
the  new  ways  in  which  it  appears  to  human  eyes  and 
to  the  human  mind.  And  so  of  the  whole  mass  of 
qualities,  sensuous  and  intellectual,  which  enter  into 
the  making  up  of  what  we  call  things.  To  be  sure, 
science  may  still  wish  to  leave  untouched  a  hypotheti- 
cal world  —  of  atoms  and  ether,  say  —  which  it 
continues  to  put  prior  to  all  experience  whatsoever 
as  furnishing  its  ground  and  possibility.  But  why 
after  all  should  we  make  an  exception  here? 
Why  not  reduce  this  also  to,  not  an  actually  existing 
system  of  atomic  bodies  with  all  the  enormous  difficul- 
ties involved  in  such  a  conception,  but  —  there  has 
been  no  better  phrase  suggested  — to  a  mere  "per- 
manent possibility  of  sensations"?  For  the  really 
;  important  thing  about  the  scientific  world  is  that  it 
is  a  system  of  law.  But  law  is  simply  the  expression 
of  a  sequence  that  is  not  beyond  experience,  but 
within  it.  We  get  laws  by  noting  the  lines  which 
experience  actually  follows;  and  if  it  does  not  or 
cannot  be  made  to  follow  these  lines,  then  the  law 
is  stripped  of  all  validity.  Law  is  a  fact  in  the  world 
of  experience;  why  not  keep  it  to  this  world?  It 
would  represent,  then,  not  an  account  of  what  is  hap- 
pening or  has  happened  outside  all  human  experi- 
ence, but  an  insight  into  the  hidden  trend  and  ten- 
dencies of  conscious  growth,  whose  validity  lies  in 


THE  FOUNDATIONS    OF   KNOWLEDGE  21 

the  fact  that,  extricated  from  its  immersion  in  the 
immediate  and  the  present,  it  enables  us  to  predict 
what  is  later  going  to  arise  in  the  way  of  further  con- 
scious content.     From  first  to  last  its  meaning  is 
confined   to  experienced  and   sensuous  facts.    All 
this  does  not  make  truth  any  the  less  true,  though  it 
changes  the  meaning  of  truth.     For  truth  is  no  longer  \ 
the  correspondence  of  our  ideas  to  some  objective 
fact.    The  true  idea  is  simply  the  one  which  is  sue-  I 
cessful  in  leading  to  that  sort  of  experience  which  j 
j  is  characterized  by  the  feeling  of  satisf actoriness.    To  i 
issue   into   some   more   complete   and   harmonious' 
sense  of  attained  desire  is  not  only  the  test  of  truth, 
but  the  very  meaning  and  content  of  the  idea. 

This  is  a  very  brief  and  sketchy  statement,  but  it 
will  perhaps  serve  to  indicate  a  line  of  thought  which 
is  rather  common  at  the  present  day.  It  seems  to 
be  involved  in  the  important  and  widespread  ten- 
dency in  philosophy  which  has  taken  the  name  of 
Pragnatism.  The  chief  point  once  more  with 
which  I  am  at  present  concerned  is  this:  that  what 
we  call  an  object  of  knowledge  represents  no  dis- 
tinct and  independent  reality,  but  is  to  be  identified 
rather  with  the  act  of  knowing  itself;  that  "things" 
have_ their  entire^  bejng^  in J:he  developing  human 
experience.  To  meet  this  philosophy  in  detail 
would  require  a  much  more  involved  argument 
than  would  be  in  place  here.  I  shall  only  take  ac- 
count of  the  simpler  and  broader  aspects  of  the 
situation.  And  I  shall  adopt  the  contrary  position, 


22         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF   THE   WORLD 

which  is  also  the  position  of  our  common-sense  belief, 
that  there  are  a  good  many  things  beyond  our  ex- 
perience which  we  can  only  know  mediately,  and  that 
between  them  and  our  knowledge  of  them  there  is  a 
gulf  fixed  which  can  never  be  bridged  completely  in 
terms  of  immediate  experiencing. 

And  I  am  ready  to  admit  that  there  is  no  compelling 
force  of  logic  which  drives  us,  whether  we  will  or  no, 
to  take  the  leap  to  such  an  independent  object  of 
knowledge.  If  one  is  satisfied  with  a  universe  which 
does  not  overstep  the  narrow  bounds  of  direct  ex- 
perience, he  will  quite  naturally  have  no  reason  for 
adding  further  and,  as  it  is  bound  to  seem  to  him, 
unnecessary  postulates.  First,  then,  it  needs  to  be 
asked  whether  the  position  really  does  satisfy  all  our 
normal  human  demands. 

And  to  begin  with  there  is  one  fact,  and  a  fact  of 
great  significance,  which  will  probably  be  accepted 
by  nearly  every  one  without  argument,  and  which 
offers  therefore  a  convenient  starting-point.  None 
qfjas  has  any  practical  doubt^that  othgr  people^  exist. 
It  would  be  possible  for  a  philosophy  to  insist  with 
much  acumen  upon  the  difficulty  or  the  impossibility 
of  proving  such  a  belief.  But  no  such  arguments 
can  practically  affect  our  confidence.  The  chal- 
lenge of  the  philosopher,  if  it  cannot  be  met,  is  lightly 
disregarded.  Instead  of  proving  fatal  to  the  belief, 
it  strikes  back  instead  upon  the  philosophical  theory 
which  presses  it;  such  a  theory  we  say  is  lacking 
in  common  sense,  and  if  it  is  right  in  asserting  that 


THE   FOUNDATIONS    OF   KNOWLEDGE  23 

we  cannot  show  the  reasonableness  of  the  belief, 
then  the  only  attitude  for  us  to  take  is  to  try  a  little 
harder  to  discover  its  reasonableness,  and  not  to 
settle  back  upon  a  point  of  view  which  excludes  it. 

Now,  the  belief  in  other  people's  existence,  what- 
ever its  source  and  whatever  its  justification,  is  at 
least  a  belief  in  a  reality  beyond  our  immediate  experi- 

^     '  V       -    -      J  J ^-  •        r-  .     -       -    -  r 

ence.  It  is  directed,  that  is,  to  an  object  which  we 
accept,  which  is  referred  to,  postulated,  known,  in  our 
experience,  and  which  yet  never  is  and  apparently  f 
never  can  be  a  part  of  the  same  experience  that  knows  } 
it.  In  relation  to  certain  experiences  of  knowledge, 
those  which  I  call  mine  —  and  concretely  every  act 
of  knowledge  that  we  have  any  reason  to  believe  in  is 
a  part  of  the  life  of  some  "me  "  —  it  is  a  reality  exist- 
ing separate  and  beyond.  I  say  I  have  a  knowledge 
of  certain  thoughts  or  motives  or  emotions  in  my 
neighbor's  mind.  I  do  not  mean  that  I  have  ever 
experienced  these  immediately.  Confessedly  that 
is  something  I  cannot  do.  I  have  had  experiences  of 
my  own  that  help  me  to  realize  what  they  must  be 
in  themselves,  but  in  themselves  they  are  beyond  the 
reach  of  my  direct  testing.  Nevertheless  I  accept 
without  hesitation  their  reality.  They  are  actually 
existing  facts.  Perhaps  at  the  very  moment  when  I 
am  thinking  of  them  they  have  a  being  for  this  other 
self;  but  between  them  and  my  knowing  thought 
there  is  a  dividing  chasm  across  which  knowledge 
can,  it  seems,  take  this  leap  of  ideal  transcendence, 
but  which  is  never  actually  done  away  so  that  the 


24        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

two  selves  or  the  two  experiences  connect  and  flow 
into  one.  And  no  difficulties  to  be  raised  about  this 
situation  really  affect  my  acceptance  of  it.  It  will 
be  urged  in  vain  that  there  is  no  possible  way  of 
getting  out  of  experience ;  that,  if  an  object  lies  be- 
yond experience,  there  is  no  chance  of  testing  the 
truth  of  my  belief  in  it,  since  a  correspondence  be- 
tween two  things  which  never  come  together  to  be 
compared  is  an  act  of  mere  ungrounded  faith  or 
credulity.  The  difficulties  may  puzzle  me,  but  my 
belief  remains  unshaken.  And  one  reason  for  this, 
if  not  the  main  reason,  is  that  the  belief  has  so 
intimate  and  necessary  a  connection  with  the  most 
significant  side  of  my  life.  The  meaning  of  life 
would  largely  evaporate  did  I  not  feel  myself  in  com- 
munication with  these  other  selves,  who  are  enjoying 
lives  of  their  own  that  are  real  and  positive  facts  of 
existence  quite  outside  the  representations  of  them 
that  enter  into  my  experience  and  knowledge.  If, 
indeed,  I  were  able  to  look  upon  persons  simply  as 
things,  whose  whole  value  lay  in  the  use  I  could  make 
of  them,  my  reasons  for  maintaining  their  separate 
existence  might  perhaps  be  sensibly  weakened.  If  I 
were  to  take  ground  entirely  practical  in  the  narrow 
sense  of  the  term,  it  probably  would  as  a  matter  of  fact 
make  very  little  difference  to  me  whether  what  I  call 
"things"  really  had  a  separate  reality  or  not.  Re- 
duce them  to  sequences  within  my  experience,  and 
if  these  sequences  actually  remained  the  same,  I 
should  on  this  count  have  suffered  no  essential  loss. 


THE  FOUNDATIONS   OF   KNOWLEDGE  25 

If  a  perception  to  which  I  give  the  name  "chair"  v 
invariably  were  followed  by  a  sense  of  support  which 
I  could  count  upon  when  I  started  to  sit  down,  and 
if  this  could  happen  without  there  being  anything  in 
existence  except  the  succession  of  sensations, — visual, 
muscular,  and  the  like,  —  then  there  would  be  no 
practical  gain  for  me  in  believing  that  the  experience 
was  somehow  duplicated  in  an  externally  existing 
world.  If  the  perception  of  a  tree  was  accompanied 
with  sufficient  regularity  by  certain  visual  sensations 
that  I  identify  with  fruit,  and  these  always  had  the 
possibility,  on  the  intervention  of  the  appropriate 
movements,  of  being  succeeded  by  peculiar  sensa- 
tions of  contact,  and  these  by  taste,  and  these  again 
by  a  gratified  sense  of  bodily  welfare  and  vigor,  then 
once  more  there  would  be  no  strong  practical  advan- 
tage in  having  another  series  —  real  tree  and  real  fruit 
—  running  alongside  the  first.  And  if  we  consider 
science  as  ultimately  justified  by  the  order  into  which 
it  gets  our  experience,  and  the  gain  which  comes  from 
knowing  what  may  be  expected  to  follow  after  what, 
then  science  in  discovering  the  laws  which  govern 
the  sequences  oL^sense  experience  would  to  that 
extent  readily  get  along  without  an  independent 
world. 

But  now  the  pragmatist  may  be  criticised,  in  so 
far  as  he  denies  the  transcendence  of  experience, 
because  of  just  this  point :  that  he  rests  too  exclu- 
sively upon  the  scientific  motive,  as  if  it  exhausted 
all  the  demands  of  life.  It  would,  indeed,  be  quite 


26         RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

possible  to  take  towards  men  the  same  attitude  that 
we  take  towards  things.  If  it  were  only  important 
to  calculate  their  behavior  in  terms  of  its  effects  upon 
our  own  action,  and  for  the  use  that  we  could  make 
of  them  in  furthering  our  ends,  we  might  conceivably 
put  all  that  had  to  do  with  them  in  the  form  of  laws 
of  sequence  which  should  ignore  as  without  interest 
the  inner  personal  facts  of  direct  experiencing.  This 
is  indeed  the  attitude  which  a  great  manipulator  of 
human  lives  is  apt  to  adopt,  and  he  can  thus  calculate 
the  lines  of  probable  conduct,  and  attain  to  great 
practical  efficiency  in  dealing  with  men,  without  hav- 
ing the  smallest  concern  for  the  men  whom  he  uses 
as  self-conscious  and  independent  beings.  But  for 
most  people  this  attitude  as  a  final  one  condemns 
|  itself.  To  regard  human  beings  as  means  and  not 
I  as  ends  is  the  most  fundamental  and  most  fatal  per- 
!  version  of  the  moral  life.  It  leaves  out  of  account 
those  facts  of  love  and  fellowship  which  make  for 
the  integrity  of  personality  as  such,  and  on  which 
everything  of  really  social  significance  is  based. 
And  for  this  there  is  needed  a  recognition  of  the  real 
existence  of  selves  outside  anything  that  is  imme- 
diate experience  for  me.  For  fellowship  in  its  very 
nature  requires  the  give  and  take  of  two  independent 
beings,  each  of  whom  recognizes  the  other,  without 
however  any  merging  of  identity. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  objection  that  may  be 

brought  against  the  pragmatist's  position  is  then  the 

/  existence  of  other  selves  demanded  by  the  social 


THE    FOUNDATIONS    OF   KNOWLEDGE  27 

aspect  of  experience.  But  now  in  some  sense  this 
undoubtedly  will  be  allowed.  Certainly  every  phi- 
losopher is  anxious  to  escape  the  taint  of  solipsism. 
And  the  thing  of  which  usually  the  pragmatist  seems 
most  desirous  of  getting  rid  is  the  independent  real- 
ity of  the  physical  world,  and  not  of  other  selves. 
Accordingly  the  statement  of  the  theory  will  probably 
be  modified  somewhat  as  follows :  Reality  is  expe- 
rience ;  but  in  saying  this,  it  is  human  experience  in 
the  large  which  is  meant,  and  not  that  of  any  private 
individual.  In  the  development  of  human  knowledge, 
then,  what  we  call  the  material  world  is  gradually 
built  up.  It  has  no  separate  existence,  though  it 
represents  what  is  possessed  in  some  measure  by 
all  men  alike.  For  the  human  mind  has  been  slowly 
shaped  to  certain  ways  of  perception  and  interpre- 
tation which  we,  as  individuals,  inherit  from  our 
predecessors.  And  it  is  this  common  mental  bias 
which  renders  our  experience  so  apparently  steady 
and  well-knit,  rather  than  an  external  something  to 
which  it  has  to  conform. 

Accordingly  it  remains  to  justify  the  validity  of 
our  belief  in  some  reality  corresponding  to  what  we 
call  the  external  world,  as  well  as  our  belief  in  other 
persons.  I  shall  state,  therefore,  briefly  some  of  my 
reasons  for  acquiescing  in  the  common  notion.  And 
first,  it  should  be  noticed  that  already,  if  we  grant  the 
existence  of  other  persons,  in  the  sense  which  I  have 
claimed  is  alone  consistent  with  any  natural  and 
unbiassed  view  of  things,  the  whole  principle  in 


28         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF   THE    WORLD 

dispute  has  been  admitted.  If  such  persons  exist  as 
real  and  independent  centres  of  experience,  then  it 
must  be  true  that  knowledge  has  in  some  fashion  or 
other  the  ability  to  reach  out  beyond  the  experience 
of  which  it  is  an  immediate  part,  and  to  make  us 
cognizant  of  that  which  exists  alongside  of  it  without 
ever  actually  joining  on  in  the  form  of  a  continuous 
stretch  of  conscious  unity.  But  it  is  about  the  possi- 
bility of  just  this  that  the  main  difficulties  were  raised. 
If,  therefore,  we  grant  it  here  in  the  one  case,  the  chief 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  going  farther  and  of  accept- 
ing the  existence  of  still  other  realities  is  already 
removed. 

There  is  a  second  way  in  which  the  existence  of 
a  world  of  things  would  seem  to  be  already  presup- 
posed in  the  existence  of  other  persons.  Speaking 
generally,  the  conceptions  which  we  form  of  other 
conscious  beings  get  their  start  in  the  strong  natural 
tendency  which  we  all  have  to  interpret  things  in 
terms  of  our  own  thoughts  and  feelings  and  motives. 
This  tendency  indeed  goes  naturally  far  beyond 
what  our  more  enlightened  judgment  comes  to  regard 
as  the  truth.  Primitive  man  lets  his  own  desires 
and  emotions  suffuse  the  entire  world  of  external 
objects.  The  tree,  the  stream,  the  whispering  breeze, 
are  each  alive  and  conscious  much  as  he  is  conscious. 
The  very  stocks  and  stones  he  endows  with  a  life 
patterned  after  what  he  knows  of  his  own  inner 
workings.  Later  on,  mere  inanimate  things  tend  to 
lose  the  most  of  their  anthropomorphic  vestiture. 


THE    FOUNDATIONS    OF   KNOWLEDGE  29 

But  it  still  seems  natural  to  most  people  to  think  of 
the  minds  of  animals  as  essentially  human  in  charac- 
ter, and  to  attribute  to  our  dogs  and  horses,  and  even 
to  ants  and  birds  and  reptiles,  much  the  same  pro- 
cesses as  those  of  which  we  are  conscious  in  ourselves. 
Here  indeed  modern  science  does  not  lead  us  to  reject 
the  belief  in  so  outright  a  fashion  as  where  it  con- 
cerned the  inorganic  world.  We  may  still  continue 
to  suppose  that  something  more  or  less  vaguely 
analogous  to  the  conscious  life  which  we  know  in 
men  exists  also  in  the  brute  creation.  But  psy- 
chology goes  more  and  more  to  render  it  probable 
that  when  we  try  to  realize  in  detail  just  what  under 
given  circumstances  is  going  on  in  an  animal's  mind, 
we  have  small  reason  to  believe  that  our  imaginings 
are  able  with  any  approach  to  accuracy  to  repro- 
duce the  actual  facts.  Even  the  life  of  the  higher 
animals  is  probably  far  removed  from  our  normal 
waking  consciousness,  while  of  what  goes  on  in  the 
lower  forms  of  life  it  is  almost  useless  for  us  to 
attempt  to  form  any  conception. 

There  is  left  therefore  only  the  inner  lives  of  other 
men  to  which  our  knowledge  can  be  supposed  with 
any  measure  of  adequateness  to  reach.  And  here 
the  basis  of  the  possibility  of  valid  knowledgejwould 
apjmrenfl^be  tHe  close  similarity  that  exists_be_tween 
other  human  organisms"  and  the  actiqns_jthrough 
which  they  express  themselves,  and  our  own.  Re- 
cent psychology  has  pointed  out  that  our  knowledge 
of  the  content  of  other  minds  is  largely  connected 


30         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

in  its  origin  with  the  process  of  imitation.    The  re- 
sult which  I  get  when  I  perform  a  given  act  I  then 
assume  is  present  also  in  the  same  act  as  performed 
by  some  one  else,  and  proceeding  on  this  assumption, 
experience  has  sufficiently  justified  my  belief  when 
the  similarity  of  the  acts  is  close  enough.    As  simi- 
)  larity  of   structure  decreases,  so  the  certainty  de- 
i   creases  that  the  attendant  consciousness  is  the  same, 
until  at  a  certain  remove  we  have  to  confess  our 
1  practical  ignorance.    But  of  the  existence  of  states 
of  consciousness  similar  to  our  own  in  other  men, 
and  of  states  of  consciousness  more  or  less  analogous 
in  the  higher  animals  at  least,  we  hold  ourselves 
assured. 

And  now  the  point  is  this:  the  whole  possibility 
of  the  inference  depends  upon  the  prior  assumption 
of  the  existence  of  real  bodies  —  mine  and  my 
neighbor's.  Without  the  acceptance  of  so  much 
as  this,  at  least,  of  an  independently  existing  world, 
the  further  assumption  of  other  conscious  states  would 
have  no  basis  and  no  mediation.  A  view  which 
treated  human  bodies  as  simply  elements  within 
immediate  experience  could  have  no  possible  reason 
for  making  the  leap  outside  experience  to  an  inde- 
pendent conscious  life.  If  the  body  were  simply 
a  part  of  psychological  experience,  why  should  we 
select  it  out  and  make  it  the  basis,  in  the  form  of 
nervous  changes,  of  that  whole  experience  of  which 
it  is  an  insignificant  fraction,  much  less  set  up  a 
second  experience  in  connection  with  another  similar 


THE   FOUNDATIONS   OF  KNOWLEDGE  31 

part  — the  .body  of  another  man  ?  If  I  am  to  know 
my  neighbor's  mind,  then,  it  can  only  be  through 
recognizing  that  in  connection  with  his  body  I  come 
into  contact  with  a  real  object  not  identical  with 
my  knowledge  of  it,  and  so  thejreality^f  other  selves  I 
stands  orjfalls  with  that_qf  an^xternal  universe. 

The  belief  in  other  selves  we  refuse  to  give  up,  as 
I  have  said,  primarily  because  it  would  take  away 
too  much  from  the  worth  of  our  experience.    So  far  i 
I  have  let  the  assumption  pass  that  there  is  no  similar 
value  attaching  to  the  independent  existence  of  the 
outer  world,  no  live  significance  which  the  belief  has. 
But  now,  further,  the  claim  may  be  made  that  this  is 
not  true,  and  that  in  denying  a  transcendent  object 
we  lose  something  of  importance  out  of  life  which 
would  really  curtail  its  meaning.    It  is  quite  possible  | 
indeed  that  one  should  live  within  the  narrow  con-  } 
fines  of  experience  and  be  content  with  his  lot,  with 
no  wish  whatever  to  raise  his  eyes  and  gaze  beyond. 
But  most  certainly  to  another  type  of  mind,  which  J 
equally  deserves  consideration,  the  attempt  would  » 
prove  intolerable.     The  straitened  boundaries  of  the 
universe  would  stifle  him.    To  rule  out  the  bracing 
and  self-expanding  sense  of  a  vast  beyond,  the  mys- 
tery of  a  great  universe  of  being,  the  awe  that  comes 
in  the  presence  of  unfathomable  reaches  of  existence 
and    infinite    possibilities   of   value   and   meaning, 
would  be  a  loss  from  life  for  which  all  the  advantages 
of  a  comfortable  home-made  world  built  close  about 
our  daily  needs,  with  nothing  superfluous  and  nothing 


32         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

that  we  could  not  comprehend  in  practical  terms, 
would  ill  compensate.  In  religion,  more  especially, 
we  find  that  such  a  feeling  gets  widespread  and  un- 
doubted expression.  A  large  element  of  religion  is 
bound  up  with  the  world  of  nature,  and  this  world 
conceived  as  vastly  transcending  human  experience. 
It  is  the  heavens  that  have  always  to  the  religious 
mind  declared  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament 
which  shows  his  handiwork.  Certainly,  to  deprive 
the  idea  of  God  himself  of  its  objectivity  and  tran- 
scendence would  seem  to  the  ordinary  religious  con- 
sciousness a  mockery.  And  whether  one  feels  person- 
ally the  demand  or  not,  he  must  at  least  recognize  its 
historical  existence  and  importance. 

But  now  it  may  be  said  that  this  argument  is  based 
upon  the  validity  of  our  emotional  demands,  and 
is  accordingly  irrelevant.  Presently  I  shall  try  to 
justify  such  an  appeal  to  feeling  more  systematically. 
Meanwhile,  it  is  enough  to  point  out  that  these  con- 
siderations do  actually  influence  our  attitude.  And 
I  have  simply  been  attempting  to  throw  doubt  upon 
the  assumption  which  many  recent  writers  have 
brought  to  the  question,  that  the  acceptance,  namely, 
of  an  outer  reality  is  purely  arbitrary  and  unmean- 
ing, and  makes  no  significant  appeal  to  us.  If  on 
the  other  hand,  as  I  have  tried  to  indicate,  it  is  a 
live  and  emotion-stirring  belief,  this  may  not  prove 
its  truth,  but  it  will  at  least  keep  us  from  an  off-hand 
dismissal  of  it  as  not  calling  for  much  consideration. 
But,  now,  there  is  a  further  reason  for  accepting  the 


THE    FOUNDATIONS  OF   KNOWLEDGE  33 

belief  which  is  not  open  to  this  objection.  For  it  is 
also,  perhaps  first  of  all,  as  a  postulate  of  causal 
explanation  that  the  belief  may  be  justified.  This 
too  may  perhaps  need  further  explanation  at  a  later 
point.  Mean  while 'I  shall  simply  refer  again  to  one 
of  the  obvious  characteristics  of  experience  which 
was  mentioned  at  the  start.  There  is  in  our  experi-  / 
ence,  namely,  a  very  large  element  of  the  arbitrary,  \ 
the  unexpected  and  incalculable  even,  the  persistent  \ 
and  unescapable.  And  after  we  come  to  know  the 
inner  psychological  laws  and  ends  of  experience  it- 
self, we  find  ourselves  totally  incapable  of  reducing 
this  to  such  inner  laws  in  any  complete  degree.  Sen- 
sations and  perceptions  cannot  be  fully  explained  in 
terms  of  psychological  function.  There  are  some 
things  which  break  in  upon  experience  to  its  total 
ruin  and  disorganization.  There  are  many  others 
which  seem  equally  to  thrust  themselves  in  without 
any  preparation  in  terms  of  what  precedes  in  the 
organic  life.  Some  of  these  may  be  utilized  for  ex- 
perience, some  cannot.  But  in  each  case  alike  their 
appearance  has  no  complete  psychological  explana- 
tion. We  could  not  possibly  predict  by  taking  account 
merely  of  the  laws  of  psychology  at  what  point  a  new 
sound  or  sight  might  break  in  upon  us.  So,  again, 
of  that  other  class  of  cases  where  new  perceptions 
do  seem  to  have  some  psychological  preparation  by 
reason  of  the  fact  that  we  are  anticipating  them  or 
actively  searching  for  them  beforehand.  The  ex- 
planation in  terms  of  experience  may  be  real,  but 


34         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

it  is  still  not  complete.  The  object  we  are  looking 
for  will  turn  up  only  under  conditions  which  our 
experience  did  not  fully  determine,  or,  again,  it  may 
fail  to  turn  up  at  all,  or  in  a  quite  unexpected  manner. 
Now,  for  such  elements  hi  experience,  recalcitrant 
to  the  inner  teleological  laws  of  experience  itself, 
we  demand  as  rational  beings  some  cause,  and  the 
conception  of  a  world  of  independent  reality  respon- 
sible for  the  influence  of  constraint  and  limitation 
which  we  recognize  in  experience  is  the  natural  and 
almost  the  necessary  direction  in  which  we  look 
for  this,  constituted  mentally  as  we  are.  If  here 
something  arises  for  which  there  is  no  accounting  in 
terms  that  keep  strictly  to  immediate  experience,  our 
)  normal  tendency  to  look  for  causes  will  lead  us  to 
i  postulate  an  unexperienced  and  therefore  a  trans- 
\  cendcnt  cause.  Of  course  it  is  possible  to  refrain 
from  doing  this.  We  may  take  the  percept  as  a 
given  fact,  an  ultimate,  about  whose  appearance 
we  refuse  to  ask  further  questions.  But  to  refuse 
to  ask  questions  is  not  to  explain.  And  unless  it  can 
be  shown  that  there  is  nothing  that  needs  explanation, 
that  the  apparent  determination  from  the  outside 
under  which  experience  rests  is  no  legitimate  ground 
for  curiosity,  then  it  must  be  claimed  that  a  belief 
in  some  extra-experiential  reality  is  a  persistent 
demand  of  our  rational  nature.  It  is  a  postulate 
of  the  causal  law. 


THE  VALIDITY   OF   KNOWLEDGE 

IF  it  is  true,  therefore,  as  I  shall  hereafter  assume, 
that  what  I  call  experience  implies  an  unexplored 
and  vast  beyond,  having  laws  and  activities  for  which 
the  narrow  section  of  reality  that  enters  bodily  into 
the  range  of  my  conscious  life,  and  of  human  life 
as  a  whole,  is  totally  incompetent  to  account,  and 
which  on  the.  contrary  it  seems  to  be  necessary  to  call 
upon  if  I  am  to  get  even  a  tolerable  explanation  of 
many  of  the  facts  which  do  enter  into  experience  for 
me,  then  the  justification  of  our  knowledge  would 
seem  to  have  another  and  a  difficult  step  to  take. 
If  experience  —  the  sort  of  experience  that  issues 
in  my  act  and  my  belief  —  were  all  that  reality 
meant  to  me,  certain  questions  which  philosophers 
are  accustomed  to  put  would  at  once  be  emptied  of 
all  their  significance.  There  would  be  no  reality 
beyond  our  experience  to  which  our  knowledge 
could  correspond,  and  so  the  query  whether  or  not 
the  correspondence  is  a  real  and  exact  one  would 
lose  its  point.  In  such  a  case  the  truth  of  any  belief 
would  consist  solely  and  exclusively  in  the  success, 
the  satisf  actoriness,  of  the  human  experience  to  which 
it  leads.  I  pass  the  judgment :  These  mushrooms 
are  edible.  The  whole  meaning  of  the  situation,  so 

35 


36         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

the  pragmatist  would  say,  lies  in  the  fact  that  I  wish 
to  eat,  or  to  sell,  or  to  make  some  other  definite  use  of 
them,  and  that  the  judgment  is  a  necessary  preliminary 
to  such  an  act  of  mine.  It  therefore  is  true  in  so  far 
as  it  has  a  successful  continuance  in  this  act  for 
which  it  serves  as  preparation,  so  far  as  it  works  out 
to  an  issue  that  satisfies  my  anticipation.  Such  an 
experience  of  active  satisfaction  is  the  entire  meaning 
that  attaches  to  the  idea  of  the  truth  of  the  judg- 
ment. Or,  I  assert  that  there  is  a  God.  The  state- 
ment has  meaning  and  is  true  if  it  issues  in  and 
interprets  itself  as  a  religious  experience  harmonizing 
my  life  and  satisfying  my  aspirations;  there  is  no 
question  of  an  actual  being  anywhere  existing  inde- 
pendently of  the  spiritual  consciousness  of  mankind. 
But,  now,  if  there  be  a  real  universe  of  things  that  lies 
beyond  the  facts  of  immediate  experiencing  for  me, 
then  I  cannot  well  avoid  some  reference  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  or  not  the  nature  of  these  realities  is 
capable  of  being  discovered.  What  is  the  world  like 
in  itself?  Is  my  knowledge,  which  as  knowledge  is 
a  mere  part  of  my  experience,  but  which  seems  to 
point  beyond  itself  in  the  act  of  knowing,  really  com- 
petent to  tell  me  anything  adequate  to  the  facts 
toward  which  it  points  ? 

Can  we  know  reality  as  it  is  ?  Is  the  mind  of  man, 
with  its  obvious  limitations  and  imperfections,  ca- 
pable of  getting  down  to  the  heart  of  things,  or  is  it 
not  presumption  in  us  to  look  for  success  in  so  vast 
an  undertaking?  The  question  has  been  asked  and 


THE  VALIDITY   OF   KNOWLEDGE  37 

argued  pretty  much  since  the  dawn  of  philosophy, 
and  it  has  very  frequently  been  answered  in  the 
negative.  And  such  a  negative  answer  in  some  more 
or  less  absolute  form  is  still  very  often  to  be  met  with 
at  the  present  day  among  those  who  are  professed 
philosophers.  I  shall  not  enter  here  upon  any  ex- 
tended criticism  of  it  in  the  abstract.  The  only  way 
to  establish  a  more  positive  creed  is  to  show  that  there 
is  such  a  creed  which  a  reasonable  human  being 
can  accept.  But  a  few  preliminary  statements  will 
perhaps  help  to  clear  the  ground. 

And  one  may  at  the  start  dismiss  without  a  great 
deal  of  ceremony  one  special  form  which  the  attitude 
sometimes  takes.  Philosophers  have  occasionally 
undertaken  to  show  that  it  is  possible  to  demonstrate 
in  a  perfectly  straightforward  and  decisive  way  our 
necessary  ignorance  of  reality  in  its  own  true  nature. 
There  are,  according  to  this  view,  two  sorts  of  facts 
-phenomenal  or  apparent  facts,  and  absolute  or 
real  facts.  It  is  to  the  first  of  these  that  our  knowl- 
edge is  confined.  They  are  purely  subjective  and 
wholly  unlike  the  reality  which  lies  back  of  them. 
By  the  nature  of  our  mental  constitution  we  are 
incapable  of  getting  outside  this  unreal  world.  We 
are  dwellers  in  the  cave,  having  commerce  only 
with  shadows,  and  our  eyes  are  forever  held  from 
beholding  the  light  of  the  outside  sun.  There  is  a 
true,  an  absolute  reality.  But  we  are  compelled  to 
recognize  that  this  reality  is  quite  unthinkable.  For 
our  human  knowledge  we  are  left  with  an  absolute 
D 


38         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

which  is,  as  Andrew  Lang  puts  it,  a  "sort  of  a  some- 
thing," but  which  refuses  any  more  definite  charac- 
terization. There  is  a  flaw  in  the  structure  of  our 
minds  which  sets  it  forever  out  of  our  reach. 

It  is  Herbert  Spencer  who  has  been  chiefly  respon- 
sible in  recent  times  for  the  currency  of  this  particu- 
lar form  of  the  doctrine  of  the  "  relativity  of  knowl- 
edge," and  apart  from  his  authority  it  is  not  likely 
that  it  would  any  longer  be  regarded  as  needing 
much  refutation.  It  certainly  has  no  advantage 
over  rival  philosophies  on  the  score  of  simplicity  or 
absence  of  speculative  daring.  It  is  only  in  appear- 
ance that  it  seems  to  renounce  metaphysical  ambi- 
tions. In  reality  it  is  itself  a  particular  sort  of 
metaphysics  which  has  to  be  defended  by  arguments 
quite  as  subtle  as  those  that  any  metaphysics  uses. 
It  is  a  perfectly  positive  theory  of  reality,  whose 
main  outcome  is  the  special  bit  of  knowledge  that 
we  cannot  know  anything.  And  this  contradiction 
suggests  the  obvious  weakness  of  the  whole  position. 
The  point  of  the  objection  is  not  difficult  to  see.  It 
calls  upon  the  agnostic  —  if  we  may  use  this  rather 
indefinite  term  to  stand  for  the  doctrine  —  to  take 
one  of  two  paths.  If  in  very  truth  we  know  nothing 
of  absolute  reality,  then  let  us  live  up  to  our  privi- 
leges. Let  us  cease  talking  of  a  distinction  between 
absolute  and  relative  knowledge;  the  very  distinc- 
tion is  nonsense.  If  we  are  indeed  shut  up  within 
the  cave,  then  perhaps  some  being  with  power  to 
observe  both  us  and  outer  things  might  discover 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  39 

our  knowledge  to  be  unreal.  But  we  never  could 
make  the  discovery  ourselves.  If  we  do  not  know 
the  sun  outside,  it  is  absurd  to  talk  as  if  we  could  com- 
pare the  shadows  with  the  world  beyond  and  detect 
their  inadequacy.  Some  positive  knowledge  is  necesf 
sary  in  order  to  give  us  ground  for  saying  what  a  thing 
is  not.  The  very  possibility  of  a  theory  or  philoso- 
phy of  agnosticism  is  enough  to  show  that  agnosti- 
cism is  not  completely  true  as  a  fact.  We  may  be 
ignorant ;  but  we  cannot  know  our  ignorance  with- 
out at  the  same  time  being  aware  of  the  existence 
of  that  which  the  theory  declares  we  cannot  know 
at  all.  We  cannot  say  that  we  are  ignorant  of  the 
nature  of  a  thing  unless  we  know  that  at  least  the 
thing  exists.  We  are  ignorant  of  the  precise  tem- 
perature at  the  North  Pole,  but  not  of  the  present 
weather  conditions  of  Utopia.  Unless  somehow  we\ 
think  it,  a  reality  is  absolutely  non-existent  for  us.  \ 
And  just  to  the  extent  we  do  think  it,  it  becomes  a 
part  of  our  knowledge,  and  therefore  shares  in  all 
the  defects  that  may  attach  to  knowledge.  There  is 
a  vast  difference  between  not  knowing  that  a  thing 
is,  and  knowing  that  a  thing  is  not.  And  more  than 
a  knowledge  too  of  mere  existence  is  needed  if  I  am 
to  be  able  to  say  that  reality  is  not  like  its  appear- 
ance. I  must  know  something  of  its  positive  nature 
and  conditions.  I  cannot  say  that  the  temperature 
at  the  North  Pole,  once  more,  is  not  a  hundred  degrees 
in  the  shade,  unless  I  have  a  definite  fund  of  positive 
and  concrete  information  about  it. 


40        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

Or,  if  we  take  the  other  horn  of  the  dilemma  and 
admit  that  we  know  there  is  such  a  thing  as  absolute 
reality  which  is  unlike  the  phenomena  of  our  expe- 
rience, we  at  any  rate  are  no  longer  complete  agnos- 
tics. Knowledge  of  existence,  once  more,  is  at  least 
some  knowledge.  Knowledge  that  this  existing 
fact  is  unlike  certain  other  and  merely  phenomenal 
facts  is  a  little  additional  knowledge.  And  it  is  al- 
most self-evident  that  some  —  even  though  a  very 
little  —  knowledge  is  not  just  the  same  thing  as 
no  knowledge  at  all.  Of  course  it  is  conceivable 
that  we  should  have  just  this  little  knowledge  and 
none  beside.  But  for  the  present  I  am  speaking 
simply  of  the  outright  and  a  priori  rejection  of  all 
knowledge  on  the  ground  that  there  is  an  established 
and  entire  incompatibility  —  again  note  the  con- 
tradiction in  terms  —  between  the  character  of  real 
existence  and  the  texture  of  the  human  mind;  and 
such  a  theory  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  of 
large  or  small.  For  the  thoroughgoing  and  dog- 
matic agnostic,  even  a  little  knowledge  is  a  danger- 
ous thing.  His  argument  is  directed  against  the 
possibility  of  any  knowledge  whatever,  and  if  it 
breaks  down  in  one  point  it  breaks  down  in  all. 

I  shall  have  occasion  to  consider  again  certain 
features  of  the  agnostic  view  of  the  world  at  a  later 
point;  meanwhile  I  shall  consider  this  general  an- 
swer sufficient  for  my  immediate  purpose  and  shall 
turn  to  another  more  or  less  related  way  of  reaching 
the  same  outcome  by  a  different  road.  After  all, 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  4! 

the  dogmatic  agnostic  is  met  with  rather  infrequently, 
whereas  what  we  may  call  unsystematic  scepticism  is 
one  of  the  commonest  of  attitudes  toward  philosophy. 
By  scepticism  in  this  last  sense  I  mean  simply  that 
tendency  to  a  general  distrust  of  philosophical  rea- 
sonings and  the  possibility  of  philosophical  results, 
based  on  no  attempt  at  a  demonstration  of  this  im- 
possibility, but  merely  on  the  general  confusion  that 
reigns  in  the  field  of  philosophy,  the  notorious  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  a  satisfactory  issue,  and  the  absence 
of  such  a  basis  of  accepted  doctrine  as  in  other 
spheres  we  look  to  to  give  steadiness  and  ballast  to 
our  beliefs.  After  all  the  ages  of  laborious  thought, 
what  have  we  but  a  wilderness  of  conflicting  asser- 
tions and  ungrounded  guesses?  Who  indeed  can 
feel  any  strong  hope  that  man  with  his  poor  faculties, 
that  grope  and  stumble  over  the  simplest  problems, 
can  ever  probe  the  profounder  mysteries  of  the  uni- 
verse ?  What  do  we  know  of  the  strange  alchemy 
and  secret  processes  in  the  laboratory  where  the 
world  was  fashioned,  through  which  there  rose  this 
which  we  call  mind,  with  its  thoughts  and  ideas  of  the 
true  and  false?  What  reason  should  we  have  for 
thinking  that  this  late  and  evanescent  product  is 
the  measure  of  the  deep  from  which  it  sprang?  Are 
there  not  problems  all  about  us  which  0n  the  face  of 
them  are  hopeless  ?  Space,  the  invisible  net  in  whose 
meshes  all  existing  things  are  caught  and  without 
which  they  would  vanish  in  one  another,  and  which 
yet  itself  is  nothing ;  change,  the  subtle  artificer  of 


42         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

life,  through  whose  magic  things  are  made  to  live 
by  dying,  which  brings  stability  out  of  an  eternal 
flux,  and  is,  only  by  ever  coming  to  be ;  force,  a 
mathematical  formula  which  moves  worlds  and 
explodes  suns,  and  drives  the  wheels  of  the  universe, 
—  surely  before  such  mysteries  the  mind  must  rec- 
ognize its  helplessness.  If  we  are  wise  we  will  give 
up  the  task,  and  turn  to  other  and  more  profitable 
matters. 

It  is  of  course  not  easy  to  meet  by  argument  a 
temper  of  mind  which  has  decided  beforehand  that 
argument  is  out  of  place.  But  a  few  things  may 
reasonably  be  said  by  way  of  bringing  into  view  more 
clearly  the  nature  and  limitations  of  such  an  attitude. 
And  it  may  be  insisted,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  is 
bound  to  show  a  large  measure  of  arbitrariness. 
There  are,  no  one  will  deny,  a  sufficient  number  of 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  reaching  a  satisfactory  phi- 
losophy of  the  universe.  But  then  it  is  also  no  simple 
matter  to  get  a  satisfactory  political  theory,  or  eco- 
nomic law,  or  comprehensive  chemical  formula. 
Indeed,  difficulties  can  easily  be  raised  about  the 
very  simplest  truths,  which  the  wisest  of  men  will  find 
it  hard  to  meet  conclusively.  If,  therefore,  we  are 
merely  basing  our  attitude  on  the  existence  of  diffi- 
culties, of  fluctuations  and  uncertainties  in  belief,  to 
be  a  thoroughly  consistent  sceptic,  a  man  would  find 
himself  committed  to  the  position  that  he  has  no  right 
to  accept  anything  at  all  as  true.  But  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  in  any  reasonable  being  this  could  only  be 


THE   VALIDITY   OF   KNOWLEDGE  43 

the  veriest  pretence.  We  are,  as  Montaigne  says, 
natural  believers.  A  man  can  no  more  help  believ- 
ing something  if  he  is  a  thinking  animal,  than  he  can 
help  breathing  and  still  remain  alive.  If,  accordingly, 
we  once  admit  the  right  to  believe,  then  unless  we 
have  some  special  reasons  for  ruling  out  directly 
certain  classes  of  beliefs  other  than  the  characteristics 
which  in  some  measure  all  our  knowledge  shares, 
we  clearly  have  no  business  to  stop  arbitrarily  at  a 
particular  point  and  say  that  beyond  this  belief  can- 
not go.  All  I  am  justified  in  saying  is  that  I  cannot 
at  present  come  to  any  conclusion  about  the  matter, 
not  that  some  one  else  may  not  have  valid  reasons  for 
belief,  or  that  I  myself  may  not  in  the  future  see  my 
way  clearer.  The  fact  that  I  am  not  as  yet  convinced 
furnishes  no  decisive  ground  whatever  for  the  con- 
clusion that  the  truth  cannot  be  known.  It  may 
indeed  induce  me  to  give  up  the  search  as  hopeless. 
But  this  is  just  the  theoretical  weakness  of  scepticism. 
Scepticism,  in  other  words,  stands  primarily  as  a  dis- 
inclination to  prosecute  the  search  farther.  It  is  a 
personal  confession  that  in  the  face  of  a  certain  prob-  ( 
lem  or  group  of  problems  I  feel  myself  baffled  and 
ready  to  quit.  And  it  is  significant  that  commonly 
it  is  the  attitude  of  the  amateur,  of  the  one  who 
approaches  a  problem  with  only  a  subsidiary  in- 
terest in  it  and  who  has  not  the  time  or  the  will  to 
push  through  to  the  end.  No  man  is  a  sceptic 
in  every  direction.  Few  men  are  sceptics  in  the 
special  field  which  they  have  made  their  own. 


44         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

Professor  Huxley  in  our  own  day  furnishes  a  good 
illustration  of  this.  Professor  Huxley  is  perhaps  the 
most  typical  of  modern  sceptics  in  ultimate  ques- 
tions of  philosophy.  He  has  gone  far  enough 
to  see  the  difficulties  of  the  problem,  and  his  in- 
terest is  not  sufficient  to  carry  him  through.  In 
precisely  the  same  way  and  for  the  same  reason 
he  professes  himself  a  sceptic  in  another  field  also  — 
the  literary  problem  of  the  relationship  of  the  first 
three  Gospels.  Here  too  he  is  satisfied  to  stop  the 
inquiry  in  despair  of  any  final  settlement ;  the  prob- 
lem, he  says,  is  in  all  likelihood  incapable  of  being 
solved.  And  yet  the  one  who  has  made  a  business 
of  it,  the  expert  in  this  particular  field,  would  be  very 
far  from  admitting  that  there  is  any  valid  ground  for 
the  abandonment  of  the  task.  And  the  significant 
thing  is  this,  that  Professor  Huxley  was  himself  the 
very  opposite  of  a  sceptic  in  other  directions.  Noth- 
ing can  be  finer  than  his  robust  faith  in  the  future 
of  science,  and  in  the  possibility  of  an  answer  to  the 
most  intricate  questions  which  science  has  as  yet 
1  scarcely  proposed  to  herself.  Professor  Huxley 
)  would  have  been  the  first  to  decry  a  despair  of  science 
;  as  weak  and  wholly  baseless.  The  difference  is 
i  simply  a  difference  of  interest.  One  problem  he 
approaches  as  an  avocation,  the  other  as  a  business. 
He  is  ready  to  give  up  the  first  because  he  does  not 
care  for  it  sufficiently  to  carry  it  to  its  issue.  The 
other  he  is  determined  to  solve,  and  so  he  finds  it 
solvable. 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  45 

The  point  is  then  that  scepticism  means  a  personal 
defeat  and  loss  of  interest.    There  may  be  nothing  ( 
that  can  compel  the  sceptic  to  believe  that  a  solution 
is  possible.     But,  on  the  other  hand,  his  attitude  con- 
tains absolutely  no  reason  why  the  problem  should 
be  given  up,  or  why  another  man  should  feel  the  least 
hesitation  about  grappling  with  it  if  he  wants  to  do 
so.    It  is  wholly  a  matter  whether  or  not  the  desire 
for  the  solution  exists.     If  it  does  exist,  a  mere  appeal 
to  past  failures  will  only  act  as  a  spur  to  endeavor. 
And  this  is  just  as  true  of  an  ultimate  philosophical 
inquiry  as  it  is  of  any  minor  problem  of  knowledge. 
The  line  cannot  be  drawn  at  any  particular  point. 
The  sceptic  has  no  more  business  to  universalize  i 
his  own  attitude  than  a  child  would  have  to  demand  , 
that  everybody  should  stop  playing  because  he  him-  ' 
self  is  tired. 

Granting,  then,  the  fact  that  we  do  believe,  and  that 
all  our  theorizing  must  proceed  from  this  assump- 
tion, we  shall  be  justified  in  shutting  out  the  sort  of 
knowledge  with  which  we  are  specially  concerned 
only  in  case  there  is  something  about  it  which  makes 
it  essentially  different  from  other  knowledge,  and 
such  that  the  same  tests  will  not  apply  to  it.  We  need 
to  make  it  a  little  clearer  perhaps  that  this  is  not  so ; 
and  to  do  this  it  is  evidently  necessary  to  examine 
somewhat  more  closely  the  grounds  on  which  we 
actually  distinguish  between  those  beliefs  which  we 
regard  as  valid,  and  those  which  we  have  no  real 
business  to  retain.  Of  course  we  are  as  a  matter  of 


46          RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

fact  continually  making  choice  between  opposing 
beliefs,  and  making  it  in  a  way  which  we  feel  can  give 
for  itself  good  and  sufficient  reasons.  And  without 
attempting  any  involved  analysis,  we  can  without 
much  difficulty  discover  what  the  general  character 
of  the  test  is.  We  may  take  the  case  where  two 
opposite  opinions  about  a  given  matter  are  held  by 
different  men.  Now,  in  such  a  case  each  man  must 
of  course  be  for  himself  the  final  judge.  But  this 
does  not  mean  practically  that  a  man  has  no  guaran- 
tee of  the  superiority  of  his  own  belief  beyond  the 
mere  fact  that  it  is  his.  It  is  quite  possible  that  he 
should  see  a  logical  justification  for  this  partiality 
towards  himself,  so  that  his  recognition  of  the  other 
man's  equal  confidence  would  have  and  ought  to 
have  no  tendency  to  disturb  his  own  opinion.  There 
are  two  ways  in  which  beliefs  actually  are  held, 
apart  from  the  unthinking  appeal  to  mere  blind 
prejudice.  Some  beliefs  we  hold  as  probable,  and 
yet  when  we  come  up  against  a  strong  difference  of 
opinion,  it  shakes  our  confidence  a  little.  We  find 
ourselves  hesitating  and  wavering,  and  if  at  last  we 
come  to  a  decision  and  reassert  our  belief,  we  still 
feel  that  we  have  no  way  of  showing  decisively  either 
to  ourselves  or  others  that  our  opponent  may  not 
possibly  be  right.  It  remains  to  some  extent  just 
a  conflict  of  authority,  and  we  decide  for  our  own  side 
simply  because  we  are  ourselves,  and  no  man  cart 
in  the  last  resort  go  back  of  what  seems  true  to  him. 
But  there  also  are  cases  in  which  none  of  this  hesita- 


THE   VALIDITY  OF   KNOWLEDGE  47 

tion  is  felt.  The  fact  that  some  one  disagrees  with 
us  does  not  in  the  least  affect  our  confidence.  In- 
deed, it  may  even  strengthen  our  conviction.  We  feel 
that  our  final  decision  is  dictated,  not  by  the  fact  that 
it  is  to  us  as  individuals  that  the  casting  vote  falls, 
but  by  something  in  the  situation  giving  us  a  logical 
precedence  which  it  denies  to  our  adversary,  and 
enabling  us  to  play  the  part  of  abstract  and  impartial 
reason. 

The  practical  ground  for  this  distinction  is  of  course 
more  or  less  obvious.  Generally  speaking,  we  have 
a  logical  right,  as  opposed  to  a  psychological  disposi- 
tion, to  prefer  our  own  assurance  to  that  of  another, 
only  when  we  are  able  to  recognize  the  relative  truth 
of  all  for  which  our  opponent  contends,  see  it  from 
his  point  of  view,  and  nevertheless  can  still  find  that 
we  are  able  to  hold  to  our  own  standpoint  as  more 
adequate  and  inclusive,  as  accounting  for  all  the 
facts  that  he  recognizes,  and  for  others  beside.  No 
one  is  in  a  position  definitely  and  finally  to  reject  an 
opposing  opinion  until  he  can  put  himself  sympa- 
thetically in  the  place  of  the  one  who  holds  it,  and 
understand  why  it  seems  to  him  true.  Just  so  long 
as  we  are  simply  in  the  polemical  attitude,  and  find 
the  view  that  we  are  opposing  wholly  irrational  and 
absurd  and  false,  so  long  as  there  is  anything  in  it 
which  strikes  us  as  entirely  without  ground  and 
motive,  we  may  take  this  as  equally  a  reflection  upon 
ourselves,  and  suspect  that  the  grounds  of  our  own 
judgment  are  still  incomplete  and  in  need  of  partial 


48         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF   THE   WORLD 

reconstruction.  When,  however,  it  is  possible  for 
one  to  say:  I  also  should  hold  to  my  opponent's 
opinion  if  I  were  limited  to  his  data ;  but  these  new 
facts,  or  new  aspects  of  the  old  facts,  which  he  has 
failed  to  recognize,  compel  a  different  answer — • 
when  one  can  say  this,  he  feels  himself  on  safe 
ground.  The  new  facts  need  not  be  part  of  the 
immediate  subject-matter  of  the  problem  in  hand. 
They  may  be  obscure  presuppositions  that  exist  in 
the  background  of  our  opponent's  consciousness  and 
create  prejudices  which  affect  his  attitude  toward 
concrete  matters  of  opinion.  Then  we  give  what  we 
call  in  a  special  sense  a  psychological  explanation  of 
his  belief,  and  show  how  it  springs  naturally  from 
these  limitations  of  his  mental  outlook,  which  make 
it  impossible  for  him  to  approach  the  evidence  in  a 
way  to  see  what  it  actually  contains.  But  in  either 
case  the  general  method  is  the  same.  We  feel 
ourselves  logically  justified  in  overriding  another's 
opinion,  because  we  think  that  we  have  a  point  of 
view  which  includes  all  that  our  opponent  sees  and 
enables  us  to  admit  its  relative  justification,  but 
which  also  goes  beyond  this  and  presents  a  more 
inclusive  system  of  facts. 

t  What,  therefore,  we  are  trying  to  attain  in  that 
conception  of  the  world,  or  of  any  part  of  the  world, 
which  we  are  to  accept  as  true,  is  the  bringing  of  all 
the  relevant  facts  together  so  that  each  one  in  par- 
ticular, while  standing  out  itself  distinctly  and  suffer- 
ing no  obscuration,  shall  yet  come  in  no  sort  of  con- 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  49 

flict  with  other  facts,  but  shall  be  recognized  rather  as 
entering  into  consistent  and  harmonious  relations 
with  them.  We  are  striving  to  get  a  comprehensive 
picture  of  things  in  which  each  part  throws  into 
relief  and  supplements  the  rest,  a  consistent  plot  in 
which  everything  moves  toward  a  single  result,  and 
no  element  has  to  be  ignored  or  thrust  out  because 
it  clashes  with  the  fullest  possible  harmony.  Of 
this  comprehensive  result  certain  laws  or  generaliza- 
tions must  of  course  be  valid.  But  we  must  beware 
of  resting  too  easily  content  with  mere  generaliza- 
tions. A  law  must  always  be  capable  of  being  trans- 
lated back  into  and  of  summing  up  the  definite  con- 
crete realities  of  experience.  The  picture  at  which 
we  aim  must  ultimately  be  composed  of  these  con- 
crete data,  of  such  a  sort  that  we  are  able  alike  to 
interpret  them,  as  data,  in  immediate  and  intelli- 
gible terms,  and  also  and  at  the  same  time  connect 
them  in  intelligible  relationships  with  other  facts. 
It  is  equally  fatal  to  have  nothing  definite  to  relate, 
and  to  be  unable  to  relate  that  which  we  have.  We 
may  say  that  the  test  of  a  true  opinion  is  its  clearness, 
if  we  interpret  the  word  not  as  the  mere  vividness, 
intensity,  emotional  force  of  the  belief,  —for  this  is 
no  guarantee  of  truth,  —  but  rather  as  the  clearness  of 
an  articulated  system  in  which  all  distinctions  stand 
in  sharp  relief. 

Now  in  this  there  is  no  fundamental  difference  to 
be  made  between  philosophical  theories  and  those 
of  any  other  sort.  Some  of  the  plausibility  that 


50  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

attaches  to  the  denial  that  philosophy  is  possible 
depends  upon  the  assumption  that  it  claims  a  right 
to  the  use  of  methods  differing  essentially  from  those 
of  science  and  everyday  reasoning.  Your  results, 
the  scientist  is  apt  to  say  to  the  philosopher,  are  viti- 
ated at  the  start  for  the  modern  thinker  by  reason  of 
the  fact  that  you  depend  upon  a  method  which  the 
whole  history  of  thought  has  shown  to  be  inadequate. 
This  is  the  method  of  a  priori  reasoning.  Philos- 
ophy is  an  attempt  to  construct  the  world  outright 
from  the  fine-spun  threads  of  mere  thought  or  logic 
or  transcendental  intuition.  It  is  like  trying  to  lift 
yourself  by  your  own  boot  straps;  there  is  nothing 
solid  to  give  you  leverage.  One  who  knows  any- 
thing of  the  history  of  thought  does  not  need  to  have 
it  proved  to  him  that  any  new  attempt  to  apply  this 
method  will  be  unfruitful.  He  feels  himself  justified 
in  ignoring  it  without  further  argument.  The  only 
possible  way  in  which  to  advance  knowledge  is  to 
come  back  frankly  to  facts,  to  experience,  to  the 
realm  where  verification  is  possible. 

Doubtless  the  philosopher  has  sometimes  at- 
tempted the  thing  of  which  the  scientist  accuses  him. 
But  if  so,  he  has  always  met  his  reward  in  the  shape  of 
incredulity  and  failure.  I  have  no  desire  to  make  for 
philosophy  any  such  claim,  or  to  vindicate  for  it  a 
method  of  its  own.  If  philosophy  means  high  a 
priori  speculation,  the  product  of  some  hypothetical 
faculty  of  mind  out  of  relation  to  experience,  then  the 
objections  to  it  are  indeed  invincible.  But  no  such 


THE  VALIDITY   OF  KNOWLEDGE  51 

claim  has  any  need  to  be  made.  On  the  contrary, 
the  whole  problem  of  thought  is  summed  up  once 
more  in  the  attempt  to  understand  experience.  Any 
aspect  of  experience  disregarded  means  necessarily 
an  imperfection  in  the  result.  The  method  of 
thought  is  everywhere  one  and  the  same.  It  begins 
with  certain  things  assumed  provisionally  to  be  facts. 
It  finds  for  some  reason  or  other  that  these  facts, 
these  interpretations  of  reality,  are  in  apparent 
conflict,  or  in  some  way  fail  to  satisfy  us,  so  that  their 
right  to  be  called  facts  is  after  all  in  doubt.  And  in 
order  to  heal  the  quarrel  it  looks  for  some  wider 
point  of  view,  still  in  terms  of  experience,  which  shall 
resolve  the  contradiction,  and  complete  and  correct 
our  former  partial  and  inadequate  understanding. 
j^ilosophy_differs  from  other  thinking  only  in  the_ 
comprehensiveness  of  Jts__aims.  It  strives  to  get  a 
conception  which  shall  find  a  place  for  every  fact  of 
experience;  it  attempts  a  complete  instead  of  a 
partial  harmony.  This,  of  course,  makes  its  task 
difficult.  But  it  does  not  commit  it  to  any  new  or 
questionable  method. 

This  implies,  it  is  true,  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
philosophy  transcends  experience.  But  in  just  the 
same  sense  science  also  transcends  experience.  No 
scientist  contents  himself  with  talking  simply  of  the 
collection  of  particular  facts  which  he  or  his  fellows 
have  experienced  in  the  past.  To  explain  these  facts 
he  is  constantly  using  hypotheses.  These  hypoth- 
eses take  him  far  beyond  the  range  of  the  limited 


52  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

field  which  represents  his  past  particular  experience. 
They  stretch  into  the  indefinite  past,  and  into  the 
indefinite  future.  They  enable  him  to  assert  what 
must  have  happened  before  man  appeared  on  the 
globe,  and  to  predict  what  will  happen  thousands 
of  years  hence.  Every  hypothesis  is  recognized  by 
him  as  having,  potentially  at  least,  a  universal  value, 
whereas  his  experience  is  strictly  limited.  Nor  does 
he  distinguish  in  a  hard  and  fast  way  between  fact 
and  hypothesis,  as  if  the  former  alone  were  truth,  the 
latter  mere  guesswork.  Often  his  hypotheses,  in  the 
form  of  what  he  calls  the  laws  of  nature,  are  for  him 
the  most  ultimate  kind  of  truth.  He  even  uses  them 
to  test  the  truth  of  his  apparent  facts,  which  may,  and 
with  justice,  sometimes  be  rejected  because  of  the 
demands  which  they  impose.  In  this  same  sense, 
therefore,  philosophy  also  uses  hypotheses  which  go 
beyond  the  bare  facts  of  experience.  The  only  thing 
in  both  cases  is  to  see  to  it  that  these  hypotheses  are 
well  grounded.  They  must  not  be  arbitrary.  They 
must  not  introduce  realities  which  are  unknown  to 
our  experience.  They  must  be  capable  in  some  way 
of  being  tested.  They  must  really  succeed  in  ex- 
plaining the  things  they  set  out  to  explain.  No 
doubt  philosophy  has  often  erred  in  these  respects. 
But  so  too,  sometimes,  has  science.  About  the  right 
to  use  hypotheses,  however,  there  is  really  no  ques- 
tion. 

^  The  outcome,  then,  is  simply  this :  that  for  an  a 
priori  scepticism  in  the  face  of  attempts  at  an  ulti- 


THE   VALIDITY   OF  KNOWLEDGE  53 

mate  interpretation  of  the  world  there  is  no  justifica- 
tion. What  one  has  indeed  an  undeniable  right  to 
do  is  to  furnish  such  reasons  in  particular  as  he  can  to 
show  wherein  a  given  solution  is  inadequate,  where 
it  fails  to  be  self -consistent,  or  fails  to  include  all  the 
facts.  But  the  offhand  dismissal  of  the  case  as  not 
offering  any  matter  for  argument  is  as  uncalled  for 
here  as  in  any  other  subject  of  human  knowledge.  We 
may  go  ahead  with  the  endeavor,  provided  always  we 
feel  it  to  be  worth  the  while,  undeterred  save  by  such 
criticism  as  can  give  a  sober  and  rational  account  of 
itself. 

There  is,  however,  one  thing  further  that  needs  to 
be  said  about  the  grounds  of  belief  before  we  are 
ready  to  take  up  directly  the  problem  of  religious 
knowledge.  There  is  still  another  actual  and  effec- 
tive reason  which  does  as  a  matter  of  fact  determine 
our  beliefs,  and  that  is  our  emotional  desires.  That 
we  all  have  a  tendency  to  accept  as  truth  what  we 
want  to  believe  is  true,  is  obviously  the  case,  whether 
or  not  we  ought  to  allow  ourselves  thus  to  be  affected. 
For  the  most  part  the  logician  finds  it  necessary  to 
deprecate  this  tendency,  and  to  warn  us  against 
allowing  our  hopes  and  fears,  our  likes  and  our  dis- 
likes, to  lead  us  aside  from  that  cool  and  impartial 
scrutiny  of  the  facts  in  themselves  which  alone  can 
keep  us  in  straight  paths ;  and  his  caution  is  without 
doubt  practically  justified.  But  when  we  look  fur- 
ther into  the  matter  jt  seems  impossible,  nevertheless, 
to  deny  to  our  desires  and  our  emotional  nature  a 


54        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

very  real  and  necessary  share  in  the  building  up  of 
our  conception  even  of  the  world  of  knowledge. 

There  has  already  been  occasion  to  sketch  briefly 
a  certain  large  view  of  the  nature  of  the  progress  of 
knowledge  in  its  relation  to  human  life.  This  bases 
itself,  to  repeat,  upon  the  principle  of  modern  psy- 
chology that  all  our  mental  processes  are  essentially 
selective  in  character.  Had  we  no  guiding  thread 
to  the  labyrinth  of  the  universe,  we  should  be  abso- 
lutely helpless  and  overwhelmed  amid  the  enormous 
complexity  of  our  surroundings.  But  as  it  is,  we 
are  in  possession  of  such  a  clew.  We  are  not  let  loose 
to  try,  unguided,  one  after  another  all  the  infinite  pos- 
sibilities of  existence.  The  dice  are  loaded.  With- 
out at  the  start  our  knowing  why  or  how,  our  feet 
are  led  into  certain  pretty  definite  paths,  without  our 
being  left  to  flounder  helplessly  on  the  bare  chance 
of  striking  some  hidden  trail.  In  other  words,  we 
are  born  with  instincts.  We  come  into  the  world 
as  beings  with  a  more  or  less  determinate  nature. 
Our  life  consists  in  realizing  the  interests  which  rest 
upon  this  instinctive  basis,  in  giving  expression  to 
the  possibilities  of  experience  and  action  to  which 
we  are  by  nature  inclined.  Except  as  it  gets  into 
relation  to  these,  nothing  can  by  any  chance  mean 
anything  to  us  at  all. 

Now  what  is  true  in  general  is  true  of  knowledge 
in  particular.  For  human  beings  knowledge  is  an 
instrument  —  one  of  the  great  instruments  indeed  — 
to  the  realization  of  a  full  and  complete  living.  We 


THE   VALIDITY   OF  KNOWLEDGE  55 

do  not  seek  to  know  as  a  purely  impartial  exercise  ; 
of  an   independent  and   unattached   mind.    Back  ' 
of  knowledge  lies  the  motive  force  and  directing 
impulse  of  a  rich  and  complex  nature  craving  ex- 
pression and  a  satisfaction  for  its  active  demands   1 
upon  life  and  the  universe.    In  the  large,  and  in  the 
long  run,  we  are  bound  to  find  some  account  of 
things  which  will  make  for  human  happiness.    This 
is  why  we  think  at  all.     It  is  not  to  know  truth 
merely,  but  to  attain  to  satisfaction  through  knowl- 
edge, even  though  this  were  to  turn  out  in  the  end 
to  be  no  more  than  the  naked  satisfaction  of  knowing. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  our  demands  are  far 
wider   than    the   demand    of   satisfied    knowledge. 
We  claim  the  right  to  find  a  universe  in  which,  not  ; 
a  thinking  machine  merely  may  live,  but  a  man.  j 
These  demands  we  bring  with  us  to  the  task  of  think-  • 
ing.     They  guide  it.     They  alone  explain  its  per- 
sistency even  in  the  face  of  discouragement  and 
apparent  defeat.     Nothing  short   of  a   truth  that 
satisfies  will  hold   the   field,  simply  because   man 
refuses  to  accept  defeat,  and  will  refuse  so  long  as 
the   springs  of  action  remain  what  they  are.    If 
by  any  chance  he  could  fully  convince  himself  that 
the  facts  of  the  world  preclude  such  a  final  satisfac- 
tion,  even  then  a  philosophy  which  asserted  this 
would  not  hold  the  ground,  for  man  would  cease 
at  the  same  time  to  think  and  to  live.  ^ 

But  now,  within  the  realm  of  our  knowledge  there 
are,  if  we  are  to  be  clear  about  the  matter,  two  main 


56        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

aspects  which  it  is  convenient  to  distinguish.  In  the 
first  place  there  are  the  things  which  we  call  facts 
in  the  narrow  and  special  sense,  and  which  represent 
in  general  the  subject-matter  with  which  science  has 
to  do.  Now  even  in  the  realm  of  what  to  most  men 
seems  the  hardest  and  most  stubborn  sort  of  fact  - 
material  fact  —  what  has  just  been  said  remains 
true.  The  fundamental  sense  of  reality  as  applying 
to  anything  whatsoever  lies  in  the  relationship  to 
some  need  or  demand.  The^real"  is  that  which 
^nables_us  to  satisfy  ^ur_actiYe_  impulses.  If  we 
could  conceive  the  animal  consciousness  as  starting 
out  with  a  purely  disinterested  attention  to  whatever 
turned  up,  backed  by  no  outgoing  tendencies  to  serve, 
such  a  consciousness,  even  if  it  were  possible  at  all, 
could  hardly  be  called  a  consciousness  of  reality. 
It  would  take  the  form  at  best  of  mere  floating  images, 
unattached,  empty,  unpersisting.  It  is  only  when 
we  regard  the  animal  as  from  the  beginning  active, 
as  groping  blindly  for  satisfaction,  that  we  see  how 
the  sense  stimulus  that  stands  for  the  satisfaction  of 
this  need  has  the  possibility  of  quite  another  value. 
In  other  words,  what  we  call  real  things  in  the  physi- 
cal world  are  things  which  stand  for  the  satisfaction 
of  the  organic  will.  They  are  the  means  to  the  real- 
ization of  the  bodily  life,  which  have  reality  because 
we  require  that  they  should  be  real.  It  is  the  insist- 
ence of  the  need  which  lends  reality  to  that  which 
will  satisfy  it.  And  when  for  any  reason  this  insist- 
ence fails,  if,  for  example,  a  great  grief  deadens  the 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  57 

springs  of  action,  we  begin  to  lose  our  grip  on  the 
actuality  of  things,  and  they  become  strange  to  us, 
far  away,  and  unsubstantial.  So  any  philosophy 
which,  like  that  of  the  East,  maintains  as  a  tenet  the 
utter  unreality  of  the  world ,  grows  out  of  and  necessarily 
depends  upon  a  starving  of  the  active  nature ;  and 
it  attains  the  goal  of  conviction'to  the  extent  to  which 
it  is  successful  in  crushing  out  desires,  and  in  culti- 
vating a  state  of  quiescence  and  indifference.  In 
general,  conviction  is  apt  to  fluctuate  with  the  strenu- 
ousness  of  our  mood  and  the  pressure  of  active  needs. 
As  Montaigne  remarks,  "  After  dinner  a  man  believes 
less,  denies  more ;  verities  have  lost  their  charm." 
This  would  appear  to  be  the  reason  why  as  a  final 
criterion  of  the  reality  of  a  thing  we  appeal  to  the 
sense  of  touch  rather  than  of  sight  or  hearing.  It 
is  only  in  connection  with  active  touch  that  the  thing 
comes  to  perform  that  active  service  for  the  bodily 
needs  which  is  the  final  basis  of  its  reality. 

But  now  there  is  another  and  equally  important 
side  of  knowledge.     Over  against  what  are  commonly  j 
termed  facts,  there  are  also  certain  aspects  of  experi-1 
ence  which  may  be  called  values,  ideals,  distinctions  j 
of  worth  and  importance..    Value  is  something  that  ' 
has  no  place  in  the  physical  world  as  such.     There 
a  fact  is  a  fact,  and  it  is  equally  a  fact  with  anything 
else  that  exists.     The  scientist  is  not  concerned  with 
approving  or  condemning  his  atoms  or  forces.     His 
universe  is  devoid  of  all  reference  to  such  an  attitude. 
But  when  we  come  to  the  conscious  life  the  matter 


58  RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

is  wholly  changed.  Here  judgments  of  value  are 
interwoven  with  the  whole  fabric  of  our  experience. 
It  may  almost  be  said  that  facts  are  no  longer  impor- 
tant^ but  only  the  worth  of  facts.  In  the  physical 
world  nothing  is  unimportant,  nothing  is  more  im- 
portant than  anything  else.  But  in  the  conscious 
world  a  thing  may  be  a  fact,  and  yet  be  profoundly 
irrelevant  and  trivial.  Thejwhole  growth  of  human 
experience  has  been  in  the  direction  of  a  progressive 
discovery  of  what  is  really  worth  while*  Art,  re- 
ligion, literature,  social  ideals,  moral  achievement  - 
these  are  the  significant  aspects  of  man's  life  in  the 
world.  And  these  are  every  one  not  affairs  of  mere 
fact,  but  of  the  value  of  facts.  Man's  full  life  does 
not  consist  in  the  abundance  of  his  knowledge  of 
those  things  which  happen  merely,  and  which  can 
be  reduced  to  orderly  sequences  of  events.  By  far 
the  most  important  part  of  his  universe  is  constituted 
by  those  subtler  facts  of  the  spirit  which  science 
passes  by.  Admiration,  hope  and  love,  faith  and 
the  inner  insight,  visions  of  beauty  and  of  goodness 
—  it  is  by  these  that  we  truly  live,  these  are  the 
matters  that  really  count. 

Of  course  it  is  true  that  science  recognizes  the 
existence  of  these  things  as  facts  of  psychological 
experience.  But  it  often  happens  that  this  admis- 
sion is  itself  made  a  reason  for  denying  to  them  any 
other  and  more  ultimate  reality  and  truth.  Because 
their  adoption  is  the  outcome  of  human  preferences, 
as  undoubtedly  it  is,  they  are  merely  human,  merely 


THE  VALIDITY   OF   KNOWLEDGE  59 

subjective,  to  be  given  no  weight  in  our  estimate 
of  how  the  real  universe  is  constituted.  It  is  the 
essence  of  the  narrowly  scientific  attitude  that  for 
it  values  have  no  objective  existence,  no  place,  that 
is,  in  the  universe  beyond  man.  It  is  called  upon  to 
concern  itself  simply  with  the  question:  What  hap- 
pens, and  how  does  it  happen  ?  The  act  which  the 
moral  judgment  pronounces  bad  is  for  physical 
science  precisely  on  a  level  with  the  act  which  we 
call  good.  The  ugly  object  is  equally  real  with  the 
beautiful.  The  fact  that  the  latter  happens  to  affect 
us  in  a  certain  way  is  wholly  incidental  for  the  un- 
derstanding of  its  real  nature.  But  while  such  an 
attitude  is  of  course  entirely  proper  for  certain  limited 
scientific  purposes,  if  taken  as  a  final  philosophy  it 
would  seem  to  be  rather  a  prejudice  than  a  rationally 
justified  conclusion.  If  it  be  so  that  man  has  inj 
his  nature  inexhaustible  springs  of  feeling,  emotional' 
demands  that  are  deep-seated  and  permanent,  and 
that  suffuse  his  whole  thought  of  the  requirements 
which  he  makes  on  life,  then  to  keep  them  fromf 
influencing  his  judgments  upon  the  nature  of  thej 
world  will  be  not  only  an  impossibility,  but  an  incon- 
sistency. For  nothing  that  science  postulates  rests 
in  the  last  resort  upon  an  essentially  different  founda- 
tion. From  centre  to  circumference  reality,  in  so 
far  as  it  stands  for  anything  beyond  the  bare  facts 
of  immediate  experiencing,  is,  once  more,  a  postulate 
of  the  will,  or  if  one  prefers,  of  life.  The  whole 
content  of  knowledge  is  an  assumption  — a  well- 


60  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

grounded  assumption  it  may  be,  but  still  an  assump- 
tion. Facts  are  themselves  ^alues.  They  are  facts 
to  us  because  they  meet  a  need,  because  they  are 
worth  something.  The  only  difference  between 
facts,  and  values  in  the  ordinary  sense,  is  due  to  the 
presence  or  absence  of  the  emotional  realization. 

j  Physical  facts  represent  certain  values  for  the  bodily 
life  which  have  got  themselves  so  well  established 

(  that  they  do  not  need  the  impetus  that  comes  from 
special  conscious  realization  in  feeling  terms.  In  the 
ultimate  sense  I  cannot  demonstrate,  for  example, 
aesthetic  truth.  I  take  it  as  true  because  it  appeals 
to  certain  demands  of  my  nature.  But  it  is  equally 
impossible  to  demonstrate  the  simplest  object  of 
sense  or  the  most  fundamental  physical  law.  Of 
course  there  is  a  sense  in  which  physical  beliefs 
have  a  certain  practical  and  historical  advantage 
over  the  spiritual.  They  are  more  absolutely  essen- 
tial to  our  existence,  and  consequently  have  become 
more  firmly  organized.  A  man  can  disbelieve  in 

/  beauty  and  goodness  and  still  maintain  an  existence ; 

!  he  cannot  disbelieve  that  food  will  nourish  and  that 
fire  will  burn.  This  relation  to  the  necessary  con- 
ditions of  existence  has  brought  about  by  the  process 
of  selection  a  uniformity  in  some  beliefs  which  is 
lacking  in  others.  Every  man  believes  his  senses, 
but  not  every  man  believes  his  higher  instincts. 
But  nevertheless  at  bottom  the  evidence  is  the  same 

(  in  kind.  We  believe  the  evidence  of  the  senses, 
not  because  we  can  demonstrate  it,  but  because 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  6 1 

we  have  to  accept  it  as  true  if  life  is  to  go  on. 
We  accept  the  validity  of  the  spiritual  values  of  life 
for  the  same  reason  —  because  we  find  ourselves  so 
constituted  that  we  demand  their  validity.  It  may 
be  said  that  there  is  an  inevitableness  about  physical 
beliefs  which  does  not  attach  to  the  spiritual.  This 
may  be  so ;  but  again  the  difference  is  one  of  degree 
and  not  of  kind.  Man  does  not  arbitrarily  create, 
for  example,  the  laws  which  rule  the  moral  life. 
He  discovers  them.  And  no  man  can  persistently 
set  his  private  will  against  these  laws  without  in  the 
long  run  having  to  realize  that  the  universe  is  against 
him,  and  that  he  is  powerless  in  the  face  of  realities 
too  fundamental  for  him  to  alter. 

Logically,  then,  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  why 
certain  particular  impulses  in  the  nature  of  the  self 
should  be  selected  out  as  alone  having  objective 
validity.  Moral  distinctions,  aesthetic  taste,  reli-t 
gious  reverence,  social  affections,  are  all  facts  off 
experience,  and  facts  of  a  stubborn  nature.  They 
are  as  real  as  the  things  with  which  the  physicist  is 
wont  to  deal,  and  they  have  as  good  a  right  to  be 
considered  in  the  final  estimate  of  the  world.  We 
cannot  brush  them  aside  without  giving  up  the  most 
precious  fruits  of  human  history  and  experience. 
These  take  primarily  the  form  of  values.  They  are 
values  whose  hold  upon  the  human  mind  depends 
on  the  belief  that  somehow  they  are  grounded  in 
the  nature  of  things.  There  is  no  man  but  acts 
every  day  upon  a  tacit  belief  in  the  validity  of  values. 


62  RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

Apart  from  this  he  would  cease  to  act.  They  are  the 
atmosphere  that  encircles  his  life.  The  scientific 
spirit  itself  is  only  the  expression  of  one  set  of  values 

—  the  worth  set  upon  truth  and  the  intellectual  vir- 
tues ;  and  it  cannot  be  allowed  to  displace  all  others 
offhand.    Accordingly  the  attitude  of  a  cold  intel- 
lectualism  which  is  unwilling  to  allow  to  feeling  any 
rights  whatever  in  the  search  for  truth  is  narrow  and 
one-sided.    This  is  too  commonly  the  attitude  of  the 
scientist.     The  whole  business  of  thought,  it  is  said, 
is  to  free  us  from  the  enthralment  of  f eeling.     It  tries 
to  look  upon  the  world  with  the  eyes  of  cool  unpreju- 
diced reason,  leaving  behind  all  endeavor  to  find  things 
as  we  want  to  find  them.    We  are  learning  to  recog- 
nize that  the  truth  is  not  necessarily  agreeable,  that 
the  world  is  not  built  to  meet  our  personal  demands 
upon  it.    And  it  is  the  part  of  the  wise  man  to  school 
himself  to  discredit  the  demands  of  feeling,  and  to 
expect  but  little  from  life.    Now  no  doubt  it  is  true 
that  emotions  are  often  dangerous  to  thought.     Cer- 
tainly it  is  not  to  be  recommended  that  when  we  sit 
down  to  philosophize   we  should   be  in  a   highly 
wrought  emotional  mood.     But,  on  the  whole,  I  do 
not  know  that  emotions  are  more  likely  to  lead  us 
astray  than  a  highly  cultivated  emotional  indiffer- 
ence.   Such  an  indifference  is  as  abnormal  as  it  is 
impossible  of  complete  attainment.     It  is  not  well 
for  us  to  make  too  slight  demands  upon  the  universe 

—  in  knowledge  any  more  than  in  action.     We  may 
avoid  certain  risks  of  error;   but  the  risks  of  over- 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  63 

caution  are  no  less  real  than  those  of  a  more  positive 
sort.     Rationality  ought  to  be  inclusive  of  the  feeling 
side  of  life,  not  opposed  to  it.    Otherwise  we  defeat 
the  ends  of  reason.    Reason  is  a  comprehensive^ 
means  of  satisfying  the  demands  of  life ;  and  to  make 
it  an  exclusive  end  in  itself  is  to  deprive  it  of  its  nor- 1 
mal  place  in  experience,  and  of  concrete  content  ast 
well. 

This  relationship  of  feeling  to  rationality  needs 
perhaps  a  somewhat  fuller  statement.  Such  a  state- 
ment to  be  complete  would  require  a  more  extended 
examination  of  the  psychology  of  emotion  than  can 
very  well  be  attempted  here.  The  nature  of  emo- 
tional feeling  and  its  place  in  experience  is  indeed 
still  somewhat  obscure,  notwithstanding  the  large 
amount  of  attention  that  has  been  given  to  it  in  recent 
years,  and  probably  any  attempt  at  a  final  estimate 
would  be  premature.  It  will  be  sufficient  for  my 
present  purpose  to  suggest  briefly,  and  to  distinguish, 
two  chief  aspects  of  the  relationship  of  feeling  to 
knowledge  which  stand  on  somewhat  different  planes, 
but  both  of  which  give  to  the  emotional  impulses 
a  certain  claim  to  be  considered  by  the  philosopher. 

And,  first,  there  is  apparently  a  value  which  emo- 
tion has  in  a  purely  functional  way,  not  as  supply- 
ing primarily  a  content  to  knowledge,  but  as  an  in- 
strument of  conscious  growth;  and  this  connects 
itself  with  just  that  feature  of  emotion  which  on  the 
surface  seems  least  likely  to  serve  the  purposes  of 
knowledge.  Emotion,  that  is,  we  are  apt  to  think 


64  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  first  of  all  as  tumultuous,  disturbing,  a  hinderer  of 
normal  and  rationally  effective  thought  and  action. 
As  I  shall  indicate  presently,  I  do  not  think  that  this 
is  true  of  all  emotional  feeling.  But  it  is  a  note- 
worthy aspect  of  emotion  in  its  most  striking  form 
-the  form  which  most  easily  compels  attention  to 
itself;  and  it  is  the  feature  which  is  responsible 
chiefly  for  the  ill  repute  that  emotion  has  among 
philosophers  as  a  disturbing  element  in  the  process  of 
thought.  In  reality,  however,  this  very  tumultuous- 
ness  and  apparent  interference  may  be  held  to  have 
a  real  importance  even  for  the  growth  of  knowledge. 
To  put  it  roughly,  it  stands  for  an  instrument  of 
discovery,  a  means  of  bringing  to  consciousness  the 
value  of  our  native  impulses  or  tendencies  or  powers, 
to  which,  as  I  have  maintained,  the  life  of  knowledge 
goes  back. 

Of  this  aspect  of  emotion  at  any  rate  Professor 
James's  theory  seems  to  be  essentially  true.  It  con- 
sists, very  largely  at  least,  of  bodily  sensations  con- 
nected directly  or  indirectly  with  certain  instinc- 
tive reactions  that  grew  up  originally  because  they 
were  more  or  less  useful  in  the  particular  emotional 
situation.  But  now  the  peculiar  intensity  of  the 
emotional  experience  does  not  seem  to  belong  to 
the  occasions  when  these  useful  reactions  express 
themselves  freely,  and  are  carried  out  to  their  appro- 
priate issue.  Action  is  indeed  commonly  recognized 
as  a  relief  to  the  emotions.  It  is  rather  when  there 
is  a  tendency  to  expression  that  falls  short  of  the  full 


\ 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  65 

and  normal  activity,  when  the  outgoing  current  is 
thrown  back  upon  itself  and  overflows  into  a  mass 
of  relatively  unorganized  bodily  changes,  that  we 
get  the  strongest  organic  sense  of  emotional  disturb- 
ance. Anger  whose  expression  is  checked  while 
I  still  continue  to  "feel  mad"  and  have  the  tendency 
to  expression,  is,  other  things  being  equal,  charac- 
terized by  a  stronger  emotional  feeling  than  the 
more  aggressive  state  which  relieves  itself  by  actually 
hitting  out  and  having  it  over.  We  can  hardly  feet 
the  emotion  of  fear  so  acutely  when  we  are  running 
with  all  our  might  from  the  dreaded  object,  as  when 
we  stand  hesitating  and  trembling,  alternately  start- 
ing and  drawing  back.  And  it  is  at  this  point  that 
the  possible  value  of  the  emotional  disturbance  lies. 
Such  a  feeling  may  be  of  the  greatest  importance  if 
it  forces  on  our  consciousness  a  realization  of  the 
significance  of  these  impulses  which  are  checked,  and 
which  might  never  have  been  valued  justly  had  they 
not  been  forced  to  struggle  for  expression.  The  great 
problem  of  rational  life  is  to  adjust  our  originally 
chaotic  impulses.  Asserting  themselves  too  easily, 
they  pass  and  are  forgotten,  and  when  the  day  of 
deliberation  comes,  of  taking  account  of  stock,  they 
fail  of  their  right  estimate.  Or,  blocked  by^more 
imperious  needs,  they  simply  subside,  and  do  not  get 
expression  at  all.  But  pushing  out  blindly  and  ten- 
tatively, and  in  their  struggle  to  assert  themselves 
bringing  about  the  upheaval  of  our  whole  nature  in 
an  emotional  crisis,  they  not  only  force  us  to  attend 


66         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

to  them,  but  at  the  same  time  they  give  a  rough 
measure  of  the  real  importance  we  should  assign 
them  in  the  economy  of  life.  Thus  the  emotional 
feeling  of  grief,  for  example,  is  one  of  the  surest  reve- 
lations of  the  worth  that  things  really  possess  for 
our  lives.  A  great  grief  often  results  in  overthrow- 
ing our  conventional  estimates  completely,  and  giving 
us  a  new  outlook  upon  experience. 

Once  more,  then,  the  world  which  we  accept  is 
the  world  which  our  self-expression  demands  — 
there  is  no  other  ground  of  acceptance.  Growing 
knowledge  is  thus  the  instrument  of  self-realization ; 
it  is  the  satisfaction  of  the  will.  But  the  process  of 
self-discovery,  as  a  coordination  of  powers,  is  a  long 
and  difficult  one.  And  an  essential  step  in  the  pro- 
cess, and  so  in  knowledge,  is  the  emotional  disturb- 
bance  to  which  the  struggle  for  expression  gives  rise. 
It  is  this  originally  vague  feeling  which  gives  our 
first  clew  to  the  importance  of  the  impulse.  Of  course 
the  claim  is  not  final.  It  has  to  be  scrutinized  and 
criticised.  But  an  emotional  claim  which  is  per- 
sistent, and  which  is  a  human  claim  rather  than  my 
peculiar  private  experience,  is  prima  facie  justified 
in  being  taken  very  seriously.  Emotions  have  dan- 
gers of  their  own.  In  the  form  that  has  been  so  far 
considered  they  belong  to  periods  of  adjustment, 
of  coming  to  self-knowledge,  rather  than  to  that  of 
full  fruition  when  we  have  entered  on  the  heritage 
of  ourselves.  The  period  of  greatest  emotional 
intensity  is  thus  the  period  of  youth,  when  habits 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  67 

and  character  are  in  the  process  of  formation.  The 
same  degree  of  emotional  disturbance  later  on,  when 
our  lives  are  supposedly  set  in  definite  channels, 
would  only  be  a  hindrance  to  efficiency.  And  the 
fact  that  thus  they  often  are  designed  to  bring  to 
light  some  value  unrecognized  or  in  danger  of  being 
forgotten,  makes  it  necessary  that  they  should  have 
an  imperiousness  and  one-sidedness  which  are  likely 
to  result  in  overemphasis.  And  yet,  if  we  did  not 
trust  them,  we  should  be  at  a  loss  to  estimate  the 
relative  weight  of  the  various  impulsive  sides  of  our 
nature,  save  perhaps  as  we  could  reduce  these  to 
terms  of  their  contribution  to  our  barely  physical 
existence ;  in  other  words,  there  would  be  no  means 
of  attaining  to  a  knowledge  of  our  spiritual  selves 
and  of  the  spiritual  world. 

But  now  let  us  suppose  that  the  period  of  storm 
and  stress  is  past,  and  we  have  attained  to  some 
measure  of  self-knowledge.  Is  feeling's  occupation 
gone?  When  it  has  helped  to  organized  and  har- 
monious conduct,  does  it  pass  away,  leaving  just  a 
perfectly  adjusted  mechanism  of  action?  Clearly 
I  should  say  this  is  not  so ;  at  least,  it  should  not  be 
so.  For  I  think  that  without  doubt  there  is  a  deeper 
and  steadier  quality  of  emotional  feeling  which  not 
only  is  not  prejudicial  to  effective  action,  but  which 
is  an  essential  element  in  all  our  higher  active  ex- 
perience, and  which  enters  permanently  into  the 
content  of  our  rational  understanding  of  the  world. 
Even  Spinoza,  with  all  his  hostility  to  emotion,  seems 


68         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

to  admit  the  metaphysical  validity  of  the  emotion 
of  intellectual  love,  and  this  can  hardly  have  any 
meaning  unless  it  presupposes  some  actual  worthi- 
ness in  the  universe  which  calls  it  forth.  There  is, 
it  is  true,  a  constant  tendency  in  human  life  for  action 
to  become  automatic  and  merely  habitual,  a  tendency 
for  us  to  lose  therefore  the  realization  of  its  meaning. 
%  And  by  reason  of  this  deadening  effect  of  habit  we 

)  never  wholly  outgrow  the  need  of  what  I  have  called 
the  emotional  disturbance,  to  break  through  the 
crust  of  indifference,  and  call  us  back  to  a  conscious 
realizing  of  ourselves  and  of  what  we  are  doing. 
But  just  in  so  far  as  this  benumbing  influence  of 
custom  gets  the  upper  hand  do  we  come  short  of 
the  truest  and  highest  sort  of  experience.  Experience 
that  is  real  and  spiritual  does  not  stop  with  mere 
;  doing.  Our  true  lives  are  lived  only  as  action  carries 
i  with  it  the  full  consciousness  of  its  ends  and  relation- 
i  ships.  And  this  is  no  purely  intellectual  conscious- 
ness. It  involves  also  and  necessarily  an  emotional 
attitude  toward  the  objects  which  are  represented 
in  our  experience  in  terms  of  knowledge.  What 
would  social  life  be  worth  which  did  not  carry  with 
it  the  continued  presence  of  those  human  feelings 
that  are  evoked  by  our  relationships  to  our  fellows  ? 
How  vastly  less  significant  would  be  our  dealings 
with  the  world  of  nature  were  we  to  lose  from  our 
experience  the  pervading  sense  of  the  beauty  of  this 
world.  Such  feelings  are  not  merely  incidental, 
merely  preliminary.  They  do  not  involve  any  let-up 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  69 

in  the  efficiency  of  action.  They  are  rather  insepa- 
rable aspects  of  the  spiritual  or  significant  side  of 
active  experience  itself. 

Accordingly  the  function  of  the  emotional  disturb- 
ance in  bringing  values  in  experience  to  light  pre- 
supposes this  other  and  deeper  aspect  of  emotion,  by 
means  of  which  certain  distinctions  of  worth  and 
preference  are  interwoven  through  the  fabric  of  real- 
ity which  experience  constructs.  And  if  these  fun- 
damental distinctions  of  value  are  a  real  requirement 
of  life,  if  our  moral,  social,  and  religious  experience 
is  bound  up  with  them,  then  the  whole  end  of  knowl- 
edge lapses  to  the  extent  in  which  we  fail  to  adjust 
the  more  directly  physical  and  logical  values  to  them. 
We  have  not  attained  the  satisfaction  at  which  knowl- 
edge aims,  and  which  is  its  sole  final  justification. 
We  might,  it  is  true,  rest  content  simply  with  calling 
this  aspect  of  experience  human  and  subjective,  and 
refuse  the  task  of  trying  to  fit  it  into  the  larger  econ- 
omy of  the  universe.  This  is  a  common  attitude,  and 
practically  it  is  often  defensible.  We  decline  to 
give  up  values  for  the  guidance  of  our  lives,  though 
we  find  ourselves  unable  to  go  beyond  this  personal 
preference  and  perceive  a  foundation  for  it  in  the  nat- 
ural world.  But  however  satisfactory  an  individual 
may  find  this  on  personal  grounds,  at  least  it  does 
not  represent  the  full  ideal  of  reason.  For  it  means 
the  baffling  of  the  rational  impulse.  It  leaves  an 
aspect  of  experience,  which  practically  is  of  supreme 
importance,  outside  reality  in  its  most  ultimate  sense, 


70  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

with  no  intelligible  points  of  connection.  Nor  on 
the  practical  side  is  the  situation  one  in  which  we 
can  rest  with  complete  and  final  acquiescence.  That 
for  which  we  really  care  we  cannot  well  avoid,  if 
we  trust  our  natural  instinct,  carrying  back  somehow 
to  the  inner  constitution  of  reality.  Otherwise  it 
loses  inevitably  to  some  extent.  To  believe  that 
human  morality,  for  example,  is  entirely  incidental 
and  unpreferred  in  the  view  of  that  last  court  of  ap- 
peal, the  ultimate  background  from  which  human 
life  stands  forth,  is  of  a  surety  to  detract  a  little,  if 
we  once  thoroughly  realize  our  meaning,  from  our 
faith  in  morality  merely  as  a  human  fact.  The 
only  attitude  which  really  goes  with  our  premises 
is  either  that  of  a  brutal  ethical  naturalism  and  wor- 
ship of  force,  or,  at  best,  the  light,  half -apologetic 
irony  of  a  Renan. 

What  I  am  claiming  therefore  is  this ;  that  in  ad- 
mitting the  right  of  feeling  in  the  search  for  truth, 
we  are  not  destroying  reason,  but  fulfilling  it.  I  do 
not  mean  in  any  sense  that  a  man  has  a  right  to  be- 
lieve what  he  wants  to,  undeterred  by  the  claims 
of  logic.  There  does  seem  to  be  a  sense  in  which,  as 
I  have  indicated,  we  may  say  with  Hume  that  reason 
is  the  slave  of  the  passions.  Reason  is  mediate. 
It  does  not  furnish  us  the  matter  of  knowledge ;  this 
goes  back  to  the  assertion  of  fundamental  needs. 
But  this  is  far  from  saying  that  reason  has  nothing 
more  to  do  than  find  for  us  the  way  in  which  we  may 
gratify  our  momentary  desires.  It  is  not  a  slave,  but 


THE   VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  71 

a  trusted  servant,  who  oftentimes  knows  his  lord's 
will  far  better  than  does  the  master  himself.  For 
the  higher  task  of  reason  is  to  assist  in  self-knowl- 
edge ;  to  teach  the  impulse,  often  blind  and  isolated, 
to  understand  itself,  by  showing  its  relation  to  the 
rest  of  life.  Reason  is  the  adjusting,  the  harmoniz- 
ing, factor  in  life.  It  takes  the  data  which  the  asser- 
tion of  the  will  supplies.  But  it  transforms  these 
data  essentially  by  removing  them  from  their  iso- 
lation, and  throwing  on  them  the  light  of  a  larger 
experience. 

There  is  no  essential  contradiction,  therefore,  be- 
tween rationality  on  the  one  hand,  and  will  or  feeling 
on  the  other.  Rationality  is  simply  the  impulse  to 
harmonize  our  experience.  Even  the  claim  of  reason 
is  again  at  bottom  practical.  If  a  man  does  not 
want  to  be  rational,  no  power  on  earth  can  make 
him  admit  the  necessity  of  not  contradicting  himself. 
But  if  our  natures  are  in  any  sense  unitary,  this 
impulse  must  be  ultimately  a  necessary  one.  As 
philosophers  we  cannot  without  self-stultification 
deny  its  ideal  claim.  Still,  practically  we  may  be 
perfectly  justified  on  occasion  in  postponing  its  satis- 
faction to  some  more  imperious  need.  And  theo- 
retically its  satisfaction  may  well  be  premature  and 
empty.  For  rationality  is  in  itself  an  abstraction 
There  must  first  be  something  to  rationalize,  to  har- 
monize. A  harmony  may  be  won  on  too  easy  terms 
by  ignoring  part  of  the  data.  And  it  is  primarily 
to  our  willing  and  our  feeling  selves  that  the  content 


72  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

of  thought  goes  back.  Thought  and  feeling  are 
thus^alike  necessary  and  interdependent.  We  must 
harmonize  all  the  facts,  and  we  must  have  all  the 
facts  to  harmonize.  It  is  perhaps  unfortunate  that 
a  defect  of  logic  should  come  to  stand  so  exclusively 
to  the  philosopher  as  the  unpardonable  sin.  Con- 
sistency is  in  a  way  his  special  business.  But,  after 
all,  philosophy  is  more  than  mere  logic  or  method- 
ology. Whatever  growth  in  knowledge  may  be, 
growth  in  wisdom  is  most  assuredly  no  mere  record 
of  logical  analysis.  Great  changes  in  belief,  epochs\ 
in  our  intellectual  history,  are  seldom  due  primarily  j 
to  mere  argument,  but  rather  to  the  half -unconscious 
ripening  of  experience,  the  transforming  and  suffus- 
ing with  new  meaning  of  the  old  facts,  brought  about 
by  processes  lying  back  of  anything  we  can  put  at 
the  time  in  syllogistic  form.  What  Newman  says 
of  his  own  development  is  true  normally:  "For 
myself  it  was  not  logic  that  carried  me  on;  as  well 
might  one  say  that  the  quicksilver  in  a  barometer 
changes  the  weather.  It  is  the  concrete  being  that 
moves ;  paper  logic  is  but  the  record  of  it." 

Accordingly,  as  I  have  said,  an  emphasis  on  the 
abstract  need  of  logic  may  sometimes  be  a  mistaken 
one.  The  appeal  to  reason  which  the  scientist  for 
example  makes  may  often  involve  the  assumption 
that  the  sort  of  harmony  which  has  already  been 
brought  into  a  certain  group  of  facts  —  physical 
facts  —  is  final,  and  a  refusal  to  take  the  trouble  to 
go  back  of  this ;  and  so  whatever  will  not  find  a  place 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  73 

within  this  particular  grouping  is  for  that  reason  to 
be  rejected.  In  the  face  of  such  an  attitude  a  man 
has  a  right  to  say  if  he  chooses :  I  am  not  able  to  see  J 
just  where  the  reconciliation  lies;  but  meanwhile  ' 
there  are  requirements  of  my  nature  which  your  par- 
ticular interpretation  does  not  satisfy,  and  I  shall 
continue  in  spite  of  argument  to  hold  that  these  point 
to  reality  and  truth.  Consistency  is  a  jewel  which4 
may  be  purchased  at  too  dear  a  rate.  If  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  giving  up  a  good  share  of  the  content  of  life 
in  the  interests  of  a  formal  consistency,  it  may  be  the 
part  of  wisdom  to  take  the  former.  Better  a  fulness! 
of  life  which  outstrips  the  logical  insight,  than  an' 
intellectual  satisfaction  won  by  reducing  life  to  Pro-: 
crustean  limits.  This  ought  to  mean  no  disrespect 
to  logic  or  to  reason.  It  ought  not  to  deny  the  pos- 
sibility of  attaining  to  a  harmonious  insight,  nor  the 
desirability  of  this.  But  it  may  well  be  the  wiser 
part  to  regard  this  provisionally  as  an  unattained 
ideal,  and  to^pref.er  a  temporary  defeat  of  reason,  if  it: 
leaves  room  for  a  richer  harmony  in  the  future,  to  a 
present  but  barren  victory. 

Again  I  do  not  wish  to  give  the  impression  that 
it  is  right  to  shelter  a  weakness  in  logic  under  the 
protection  of  a  demand  of  feeling.    The  philosopher 
cannot  possibly  abdicate  the  task  of  striving  for  con- 
sistency.    And  in  the  long  run  a  belief  which  per-j 
sistently  refuses  to  fall  in  line  with  the  less  emotional 
aspects  of  truth  —  scientific  truth  in  particular  — ^ 
will  inevitably  suffer.    Sooner  or  later  any  remnant 


74  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

of  blind  feeling  or  aspiration,  any  mere  setting  of 
the  will,  must  be  beaten  in  the  contest  with  the  lead- 
ings of  the  rational  insight.  Present  satisfactoriness 
to  feeling  is  no  ultimate  test.  Man  cannot  get  away 
from  the  fact  that  he  is  a  rational  being,  a  searcher 
for  truth;  and  in  Plato's  words,  "a  measure  of  such 
things  which  in  any  degree  falls  short  of  truth  is  not 
fair  measure."  I  only  insist  that  feeling  sets  a  real 
problem  for  reason  which  is  entitled  to  serious  con- 
sideration. Other  things  being  equal,  an  intellec- 
tual construction  to  which  feeling  can  attach  itself 
-the  feeling  of  mankind  and  not  simply  of  the 
individual  —  has  a  commanding  lead  in  the  struggle 
for  survival. 

The  aim  of  reason  then,  as  philosophy,  is  to  intro- 
duce a  large  consistency  into  experience  taken  in  its 
fullest  possible  extent;  and  this  includes  the  pos- 
tulates of  feeling.  To  limit  its  exercise  to  facts  as 
distinguished  from  values,  to  confine  its  operations 
to  the  mere  sequence  of  events,  is  to  subtract  with- 
out warrant  from  its  dignity  and  function.  But 
now,  on  the  other  hand,  this  is  not  to  lose  sight  of  the 
very  real  dangers  and  limitations  which  attach  to 
feeling  as  a  method  of  knowledge.  And  perhaps 
the  largest  limitation  is  this :  that  our  feejings  should 
not  be  allowed_to  dictate  to  us  what  the  facts  in  the 
ojdjnary_sense  shall  be.  The  wider  interpretation 
of  the  nature  and  bearings  of  these  facts  will  indeed 
be  under  some  degree  of  guidance  from  feeling.  But 
such  an  interpretation  must  always  presuppose  cer- 


THE  VALIDITY   OF  KNOWLEDGE  75 

tain  definite  particular  sequences  which  we  ought 
to  accept  with  entire  impartiality,  uninfluenced  in 
any  manner  by  our  hopes  and  desires.  The  ex- 
perience with  which  science  has  to  do  goes  back  to  a 
source  lying  too  deep  in  our  natures  to  be  displaced 
or  denied  or  ignored  by  any  philosophical  summing 
up  of  reality  that  can  approve  itself.  And  so  it  is 
that  for  a  sound  philosophical  method  _the  first  and 
f mid^mentaLdatum  js  thejnaterial^wMdh  without\ 
prejudice  and  without  favor  it  must  take  over  from 
science,  as  an _oj^ajiizeA_ac^mm^ofjhe  facts  of  ex- 
perience ;  and  the  central  difficulty  of  its  problem  I 
lies  in  the  adjustment  of  the  more  spiritual  and  sig- ! 
nificant  human  ideals  to  this  stubborn  core.  Of 
course  science  may  attempt  to  foibt  upon  philosophy 
a  mass  of  extra-scientific  assumptions  and  interpreta- 
tions ;  these  can  be  taken  for  what  they  are  worth, 
and  rejected  if  they  cannot  stand  the  test.  But  so 
long  as  it  keeps  within  its  rights,  and  contents  itself 
with  a  bare  unvarnished  account  of  what  happens 
and  how  it  happens,  science  may  fairly  claim  an 
authority  which  no  demand  of  feeling  can  overthrow, 
and  which  philosophy  therefore  is  bound  to  respect. 
And  the  basis  of  this  fundamental  place  which 
science  has  in  our  modern  constructions  of  reality 
is  in  the  end  this :  that  its  facts  and  its  laws  are  sub- 
ject to  experiment  and ^experimentaj^verification.  It 
is  this  —  the  possibility  of  verification  —  which  we 
have  justly  come  to  require  nowadays  in  order  to 
fix  a  thing  in  our  system  of  truth,  and  take  it  out  of 


76  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  realm  of  mere  casual  fancy  and  conjecture.  And 
it  may  be  admitted  that  truths  of  value  do  not  admit 
of  verification  in  just  the  same  sense,  with  the  same 
directness  and  precision  and  lack  of  ambiguity, 
as  is  often  attainable  in  the  realm  of  physical  science. 
But  yet  in  a  real  way  verification  is  possible  even  here, 
and  is  demanded.  If  belief  depends  upon  the  needs 
of  life,  then  that  in  the  end  will  be  accepted  which 
actually  works,  which  gives  the  possibility  of  free  and 
harmonious  self-expression.  And  accordingly  there 
is  continually  in  operation  in  the  realm  of  our  beliefs 
this  checking  and  selective  force.  We  have  not  the 
right  to  believe  everything  to  which  we  may  feel  in- 
clined. It  is  not  enough  that  we  should  make  the 
demand;  in  addition  reality  must  stand  ready  to 
meet  the  demand,  to  honor  our  drafts  upon  it.  To 
the  holding  of  a  rational  belief  it  is  quite  essential  that 
we  should  have  done  this  active  experimenting,  and 
should  have  been  willing,  moreover,  to  abide  by  the 
result^  The  recognition  of  this  qualification  will  take 
a  good  deal  of  the  force  from  protests  against  the 
general  point  of  view,  on  the  ground  that  it  makes 
no  distinction  between  believing  a  thing  true  because 
we  wish  it  so,  and  because  we  actually  find  that  it  is 
so.  The  former  attitude  we  do  condemn.  But  our 
condemnation  is  not  due  to  the  fact  that  the  belief 
is  a  postulate,  or  even  a  postulate  of  feeling.  We 
condemn  it  because  it  stops  with  a  mere  passive 
acquiescence  in  the  first  vague  and  half -formed  desire 
—  which  may  or  may  not  be  a  real  and  permanent 


THE  VALIDITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE  77 

demand  —  without  recognizing  the  need  of  a  further 
test;    or  because  it  persists  stubbornly  in  its  first 
opinion  in  the  face  of   new  and  conflicting  results 
of  experience  that  ought  to  be  taken  into  account. 
Experiment  then  is  essential  to  rationality,  and  along 
with  the  demand  there  must  go  the  willingness  of 
the  universe  to  meet  it.    We  do  not  have  to  take  our  I 
spiritual  beliefs  wholly  on  trust,  and  we  ought  not  j 
to  do  so,  any  more  than  we  take  a  scientific  law 
wholly  on  trust.    As  science  puts  all  sorts  of  tests  to 
the  universe  in  order  to  verify  its  law,  so  life  makes 
its  experiments  to  verify  its  intuitions  of  meaning. 
And  until  the  experiments  have  somehow  worked,  we 
cannot  rest  with  any  assurance  that  this  particular 
demand  is  justified.    History  is  strewn  with  ideals, 
as  it  is  strewn  with  scientific  theories,  which  further 
experience  has  had  in  some  measure  to  discard  as 
inadequate.    In  the  large  sense  of  the  word,  there- 
fore, the  consistency  which  truth  demands  is  a  prac- 
tical rather  than  a  merely  theoretical  one.    It  is  the 
consistency,  not  of  facts  merely,  but  of  the  concrete 
flow  of  life,  and  this  includes  of  necessity  our  emo- 
tional needs.    And  just  as  we  start  out  by  assuming  i 
that  events  in  the  physical  world  will  be  orderly,  \ 
and  find  our  confidence  gradually  justified  by  the  < 
way  in  which  the  world  comes  halfway  to  meet  our  < 
requirements,    so   of   our   emotional   demands.     If  « 
human    life   becomes   slowly   settled,    harmonious, 
and  self -justifying,  when  we  act  upon  the  assumption 
that  the  universe  has  a  certain  ideal  constitution,  then 


78  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

we  have  the  same  right,  in  kind  if  not  in  degree,  to 
accept  this  as  a  verification  of  our  faith,  as  we  have 
to  accept  the  progressive  discovery  of  regularities 
in  perceptual  experience  as  a  verification  of  our 
originally  blind  faith  in  order  and  reason. 

The  conception  of  the  ultimate  task  of  philosophy 
i  to  which  we  have  come  is  therefore  this :  that  philos- 
<  ophy  is  the  effort  to  attain  to  a  way  of  thinking  about 
i  the    universe  which    shall    satisfy  us  as   complete 
j  human  beings,  in  all  the  richness  of  our  activities  and 
'i  aspirations.     It  is  no  mere  knowledge  of  facts  and 
laws  as  science  is;   it  must  find  a  place  for  wisdom 
also,  through  which  this  knowledge  gets  its  legating 
upon  life  and   the   significance   of   life.     For    this 
task  all  fundamental  instincts  that  make  up  human 
nature  act  as  guides  and  clews,  and  they  serve  before- 
hand as  determining  conditions  which  any  finally 
acceptable  truth  must  meet.    We  'can  rest  content 
\  with  no  result  which  ignores  the  demands  of  feeling, 
\  simply  because  our  whole  search  is  backed  by  such 
\  motives ;  and  even  if  we  elect  to  stop  short  of  com- 
plete satisfaction,  there  still  lies  behind  this  choice 
our  concrete  and  instinctive  self,  mightier  than  any 
one-sided  logical  insistence,  if  not  in  us  as  individuals, 
at  any  rate  in  the  race. 


RELIGION  AND   PHILOSOPHY 

WE  are  ready  therefore,  after  this  brief  survey  of 
the  nature  of  knowledge  in  general,  to  come  more 
directly  to  the  main  point  at  issue  — the  justification 
of  the  special  sort  of  knowledge  which  is  involved  in 
a  religious  conception  of  the  world.  It  will  be  ap- 
parent that  if  we  understand  philosophy  in  the  way 
that  has  just  been  indicated,  the  relation  which  it  has 
to  religion,  as  one  of  the  great  aspects  of  man's  spir- 
itual experience,  will  be  a  very  close  and  natural  one. 
And  the  relation  will  appear  still  closer  if  we  turn  now 
to  religion,  and  ask  briefly  wherein  the  nature  of  this 
also  consists.  And  without  stopping  to  justify  the 
definition  in  any  careful  way,  since  this  would  neces- 
sitate a  lengthy  inquiry,  I  think  it  may  appear  that 
there  are  perhaps  three  elements  which  go  especially 
to  make  up  the  religious  attitude. 

In  the  first  place,  religion  involves  a  belief  in  some 
reality  which  is  regarded  as  having  a  certain  status 
of  power^  if  we  may  use  the  word  without  a  necessary 
reference  to  physical  efficiency.  This  power  or  in- 
fluence may  be  regarded  as  personally  wielded ;  this 
it  commonly  is.  It  may  take  a  form  which  has  to 
be  put  in  terms  of  fat£,  or  of  law,  or  of  logical  neces- 
sity like  the  God  of  Spinoza.  It  may  be  the  com- 
79 


8o  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE    WORLD 

pelling  dignity  of  a  moral  attribute.  But  in  any  case 
the  worshipper  feels  himself  in  the  presence  of  that 
which  is  somehow  at  the  centre  of  things,  at  the  helm, 
and  which  is  in  a  position  to  make  itself  felt  for  good 
or  for  ill. 

Furthermore,  the  reality  which  is  thus  endowed 
carries  with  it  a  certain  flavor  of  mysteriousness  - 
the  basis  of  the  religious  awe.  We  may  see  power  in 
objects  or  in  our  fellow-men,  but  this  does  not  make 
our  attitude  toward  it  necessarily  a  religious  one.  If 
we  can  grasp  it  wholly,  see  into  and  around  it,  under- 
stand how  it  is  exercised  and  what  are  its  limits, 
we  cease  to  stand  in  the  religious  relationship  to  it. 
The  source  of  this  opaqueness  and  mystery  may  be 
varying.  It  may  be  due  to  sheer  ignorance  at  the' 
one  extreme,  or  to  an  awed  sense  of  perfect  goodness1 
and  holiness  lying  beyond  our  own  powers  of  attain- 
ment. It  includes  the  mystery  of  magic  and  the 
mystery  of  godliness.  But  it  has  to  be  present  for 
one  reason  or  another.  And  this  variety  of  causes 
is  one  source  of  the  difference  in  the  objects  to  which 
religion  attaches  itself.  The  power  which  appeals 
to  some  men  as  mysterious  is  to  others  an  open 
page.  The  priest  who  is  in  the  secret  of  the  thau- 
maturgy  can  scarcely  be  expected  to  have  the  reli- 
gious feeling  of  him  who  worships  from  a  distance. 
The  modern  man  of  science  will  find  it  difficult  to 
put  himself  in  the  place  of  the  uneducated  devotee 
of  the  supernatural.  The  frequenter  of  the  court  can 
hardly  have  much  temptation  to  yield  to  the  sense  of 


RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY  8 1 

that  divinity  which  doth  hedge  a  king, —  a  feeling 
indistinguishable  at  times  from  a  genuinely  religious 
spirit.  The  deification  of  rulers  is  indeed  a  frequent 
phenomenon  of  religion. 

The  third  aspect  of  the  religious  consciousness  is 
already  implied  in  the  one  first  mentioned,  and  is 
needed  to  complete  it  and  make  it  intelligible.    This 
power  would  have  no  meaning  for  man  except  as  it 
stood  in  some  practical  relationship  to  him.    I  am 
using  "practical"  in  the  widest  sense.    But  in  this 
sense  the  statement  is  self-evident.    We  never  should 
take  the  trouble  to  recognize,  much  less  to  worship, 
that  which  had  no  possible  bearing  upon  the  de- 
mands of  our  own  lives.    If  we  try  then  to  state  what 
this  relation  is,  in  the  most  generalized  form  I  think 
it  might  stand  in  some  such  way  as  this :  God  repre-  * 
sents  that  power  in  the  world,  not  wholly  interpret- , 
able  by  us,  and  so  striking  us  with  some  measure  ofv 
awe,  on  which  depends  such  part  of  the  attainment < 
of  the  valuable  ends  of  life  as  we  feel  lies  outside  the ! 
scope  of  our  own  unaided  powers.     God  is  the  ulti- 
mate demand  we  make  upon  the  universe  in  the  in- 
terest of  our  own  complete  living.    He  is  the  final 
conservator  and  guarantee  of  the  values  of  life  in  so 
far  as  they  do  not  depend  upon  ourselves,  or  on  those 
beings  with  which  we  consider  ourselves  so  famil- 
iarly acquainted  that  we  feel  in  a  way  master  of 
their  behavior. 

I  think  that  such  a  definition  will  include  the  great 
variety  of  expressions  which  the  religious  impulse 


82  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

has  taken.  For  the  chief  occasion  of  this  variety 
lies  in  the  great  range  which  the  values  of  life  cover. 
When  man  is  simply  on  the  plane  of  physical  needs, 
then  God  necessarily  takes  the  form  of  an  instru- 
ment to  be  utilized  in  meeting  the  exigencies  of  the 
natural  life.  He  is  a  fetich,  a  helper  or  protector 
to  whom  to  appeal,  a  being  whom  prayer  and  sacri- 
fice can  mysteriously  summon  to  the  worshipper's 
aid,  and  whose  mysterious  power  may  be  expected 
to  work  almost  any  needed  miracle.  Or,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  may  arouse  primarily  the  emotion  of  fear, 
because  the  good  of  life  calls  also  for  the  avoidance 
of  surrounding  dangers ;  and  the  more  these  dangers 
press,  the  more  man  is  conscious  of  the  forces  which 
lie  beyond  his  direct  control,  and  of  the  need  of  ward- 
ing off  their  power  for  harm.  And  since  the  demands 
of  the  physical  life  are  always  with  us,  it  is  not  strange 
that  throughout  the  history  of  religion  the  thought  of 
God  as  the  dispenser  of  temporal  blessings,  or  as 
the  possible  source  of  evils,  to  be  propitiated  and  his 
wrath  averted,  should  have  maintained  itself  per- 
sistently. 

But  as  man  rises  out  of  the  limitations  of  his  more 
primitive  ends,  other  values  more  and  more  become 
significant  for  determining  the  conception  of  God. 
In  particular  do  ethical  and  social  values  begin  to 
stand  as  the  fundamental  ones.  These  demands 
again  take  many  different  forms,  and  are  interpreted 
in  many  different  ways.  For  the  one  whose  inter- 
ests are  in  the  realm  of  practical  social  good,  and 


RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY  83 

who  has  no  metaphysical  turn  of  mind,  humanity 
may  take  the  place  of  God  and  become  a  religion. 
To  the  mystical  temperament  which  is  impressed 
most  profoundly  with  the  impermanence  of  the  finite 
and  the  vanity  of  earthly  things,  God  means  the  ne- 
gation of  all  that  is  particular  and  that  can  be  put 
in  terms  of  human  thought,  the  guarantee  of  the  eter- 
nal peace  of  nothingness.  Or  again  the  aesthetic 
value  may  rule,  as  in  the  poetic  glorification  of  nature 
and  beauty  which  is  essentially  religious  in  its  char- 
acter. Or  still  again,  as  with  Spinoza,  an  absolute 
of  logic  may  be  the  ground  of  all  things,  where  zeal 
for  truth  represents  the  great  value  of  life. 

In  the  end,  therefore,  the  aim  of  religion  appears  to 
be  not  essentially  different  from  that  of  philosophy. 
Religion  js_simply  the^  recognition  that  life  has  spirit- 
ual values,  and  th^de^^^^t^^jvorld  sbalLbe 


so  conceivecrjs_to  give  a  basis  and  guarantee_lor 
these  values^  Philosophy  substitutes  the  intellec- 
tuaT  attitude  for  the  more  directly  practical  and 
emotional  one  of  religion,  and  is  concerned  primarily 
with  the  matter  of  rational  consistency  ;  but  none  the 
less  is  its  final  interest  fundamentally  the  same. 

But  now  this  relationship  of  philosophy  and  re- 
ligion has  another  side  which  particularly  concerns 
us  here.  It  scarcely  needs  pointing  out  that  on  the 
interpretation  of  reason  which  has  been  followed  in 
the  preceding  discussion,  a  religious  philosophy  ought 
to  presuppose  and  to  recognize  its  dependence  upon 
the  far  greater  and  more  central  fact  of  the  historical 


84  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

religious  experience.  And  I  wish  to  urge  for  a 
moment  the  bearing  of  this  upon  the  attitude  which 
we  shall  adopt  as  philosophers  toward  religious 
beliefs. 

There  is  a  strong  tendency  in  modern  times  to 
consider  that  a  philosophy  is  rather  weakened  than 
otherwise  by  its  coincidence  with  current  religious 
motives  and  constructions.  The  main  reason  for 
this  is  perhaps  the  insight  which  historical  criticism 
has  given  us  into  the  irrational  way  in  which  religious 
beliefs  have  often  grown  up,  their  dependence  upon 
the  undisciplined  play  of  a  highly  wrought  imagina- 
tion, upon  a  narrow  and  selfish  interpretation  of 
human  needs,  and  upon  conditions  of  a  merely  local 
and  temporary  importance.  And  it  is,  of  course, 
true  that  much  caution  needs  to  be  used  in  estimat- 
ing the  rational  value  of  any  religious  formulation ; 
we  cannot  accept  it  uncritically./  Nevertheless,  it  is 
far  from  being  clear  that  philosophy  can  safely  cut 
loose  from  religion  in  its  historical  form.  For  cer- 
tainly religion  is  a  human  experience  of  very  pro- 
found  significance,  so  much  so  that  its  value  will 
not  here  be  considered  a  matter  of  dispute.  It  is 
assumed  that  religion  is  solidly  grounded  in  human 
nature.  The  shallow  rationalism  which  supposes 
that  by  a  few  arguments  it  can  dislodge  so  vital  an 
element  of  man's  spiritual  life,  and  which  can  proph- 
esy its  speedy  extinction  before  a  scientific  or  human- 
istic secularism,  no  longer  has  the  plausibility  it  once 
possessed./  Any  sympathetic  reading  of  history  must 


RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY  85 

result  in  the  recognition,  not  of  course  that  religion 
will  never  cease  to  be  the  expression  of  human  needs, 
but  that  at  least  it  is  a  tremendously  vital  instinct,  in 
the  presence  of  which  the  attacks  of  the  individual 
or  the  band  of  philosophic  iconoclasts  seem  rather 
puny  and  powerless.  And  the  existence  of  a  large 
element  of  the  irrational  in  the  beliefs  which  attach 
to  religion  cannot  be  allowed  to  obscure  this  recog- 
nition. The  only  really  fatal  attack  upon  religion 
would  be  the  proof  that  it  serves  no  genuine  human 
interest.  But  if  the  interest  is  there,  if  it  is  deep- 
seated  in  man's  nature  as  a  historical  being,  no  grop- 
ing or  fumbling  on  the  part  of  those  who  first  try  to 
find  an  answer  can  discredit  the  essential  demand. 
A  being  the  nature  of  whose  make-up  renders  him 
fundamentally  inclined  to  get  his  experience  into 
some  measure  of  organized  and  intelligible  shape 
cannot  be  persuaded,  and  rightly  so,  by  abstract  ar- 
guments of  philosophical  scepticism,  no  matter  how 
plausible.  And  similarly,  if  there  is  in  man  a  pro- 
found impulse  to  believe  in  a  world  in  which  he  shall 
feel  practically  at  home,  and  which  shall  satisfy  his 
deeper  and  permanent  cravings,  such  an  impulse  is 
bound  to  outlive  the  failure  of  this  or  that  attempt 
at  intellectual  satisfaction.  That  the  earlier  forms 
to  which  the  religious  postulate  gives  rise  are  inade- 
quate no  more  discredits  it,  than  the  vagaries  of  al- 
chemy discredit  the  science  of  chemistry,  and  the 
postulate  of  order  and  law  in  nature./ 

But  now  this  implies  also  that  we  should  look  to 


86  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

find  religion,  as  the  main  way  in  which  concrete 
human  experience  has  attempted  to  sum  up  its  best 
understanding  of  the  nature  and  significance  of  the 
world  as  a  whole,  becoming  gradually  more  rational, 
more  consonant  with  philosophical  standards  of 
truth,  as  experience  grows  settled  and  mature.  /As 
a  revelation  of  the  motives,  certainly,  which  experi- 
ence justifies,  of  the  needs  of  human  life  which  are 
to  be  adjudged  real  and  permanent,  and  therefore 
to  be  taken  into  account  by  our  rational  theories, 
philosophy  cannot  dispense  with  the  guidance  of 
historical  religious  faiths.  But,  furthermore,  it  will 
not  refuse  such  guidance  either  in  the  interpretation 
of  these  needs.  It  will  suspect  that  in  the  higher 
and  more  developed  religions  the  intellectual  form 
is  not  separable  in  any  thoroughgoing  way  from  the 
needs  lying  back  of  it;  it  will  naturally  expect  to 
find  the  development  of  religion  more  and  more  in 
the  direction  of  a  substantial  truth  of  doctrine./ (Un- 
less, therefore,  it  feels  prepared  to  substitute  a  ration- 
alism of  the  eighteenth-century  type  for  the  normal 
method  of  growth  in  wisdom  through  the  accumu- 
lations of  a  massive  human  experience,  it  will  choose 
to  pay  some  respect  to  that  less  discursive,  and  more 
immediate  and  emotional,  mode  of  construing  the 
world  which  religion  represents,  rather  than  dis- 
credit it  too  hastily  in  favor  of  a  more  logically 
grounded  belief.) /If  the  philosopher  tries  to  show 
that  there  is  no  ineptitude  involved  in  such  a  frame- 
work of  reality  as  religion  requires,  in  the  form  hi 


RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY  87 

which  it  has  proved  most  adequate  to  human  needs, 
as  a  point  of  attachment  for  religious  feeling,  but  that 
rather  this  approves  itself  to  the  reason  as  the  most 
satisfactory  conception  we  can  get  for  the  understand- 
ing of  the  universe,  he  is  only  putting  himself  in  line 
with  the  natural  and  continuous  development  of 
human  belief ;  and  he  has  the  right  to  a  certain  ad- 
vantage of  position  which  this  gives.  The  defender 
of  a  religious  view  of  the  world  may  fairly  claim,  in 
other  words,  that  he  is  not  merely  adding  one  specu- 
lative fancy  more  to  the  heap  of  exploded  systems, 
that  he  is  not  setting  himself  single-handed  to  out- 
face the  solid  and  unshifting  array  of  scientific  and 
positive  fact,  but  that  he  too  has  a  weighty  backing 
in  the  common  religious  experience  of  men,  which 
gives  steadiness  and  ballast  to  his  efforts,  and  pre- 
vents them  from  wearing  the  appearance  of  an  ar- 
bitrary tour  de  force.  / 

Now  of  course,  in  attaching  himself  to  any  par- 
ticular religious  conception,  no  matter  what  its  place 
in  the  large  historical  process,  the  philosopher  cannot 
avoid  a  certain  appeal  to  individual  judgment. 
The  verdict  of  history  is  not  absolute  and  unambigu- 
ous. In  choosing  one  he  has  to  discard  in  part  the 
rest,  and  this  introduces  a  certain  element  of  the  ar- 
bitrary. But  this  is  true  whenever  man  attempts  to 
reason  about  anything.  If  a  mere  appeal  to  history 
settled  truth  finally,  we  could  never  pass  beyond  the 
dominant  belief  of  the  age.  The  situation  is  a  much 
more  subtle  one.  We  cannot  indeed  subject  it  to 


88  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

definition  or  formal  rule,  but  it  involves  the  interac- 
tion of  both  sides  in  the  living  growth  of  knowledge 
-the  outcome  of  past  experience,  and  the  new 
insight  that  comes  from  a  personal  reaction  to  the 
problem./(l"he  individual  thinker  must  select  and 
estimate.  But  at  the  same  time  he  is  not  freed  from 
allegiance  to  the  past ;  he  gets  a  true  basis  for  sound 
judgment  only  as  in  some  real  sense,  though  this 
cannot  be  mechanically  denned,  his  judgment  is 
dictated  by  history  itself.  I  shall  assume,  therefore, 
that  something  of  the  weight  that  attaches  to  religion 
as  such  belongs  also  to  that  special  form  of  religion 
—  Christianity  —  which  alone  of  the  faiths  of  the 
world  may  be  regarded  as  having  shown  itself  to 
be  in  any  considerable  measure  adequate  to  the 
needs  of  human  life  at  the  present  day,  at  any  rate 
in  the  western  world.  The  time  may  come  when 
Christianity  is  definitively  bankrupt.  But  so  long 
as  it  maintains  its  real  vitality  it  may  fairly  lay  claim 
to  possess  at  bottom  some  measure  of  insight  which 
experience  itself  is  thus  justifying,  and  which  the 
justification  of  experience  gives  a  certain  right  to 
be  regarded  as  presumptively  true. 

Such  a  claim  is  of  course  in  no  sense  absolute. 
If  it  comes  in  apparent  conflict  with  facts  in  some 
other  sphere  of  knowledge,  the  resulting  difficulties 
should  be  candidly  recognized.  That  there  are  prob- 
lems, and  serious  problems,  which  have  thus  arisen 
is  undeniable.  Indeed  were  it  not  for  these  the 
interposition  of  philosophy  would  not  have  been 


RELIGION  AND   PHILOSOPHY  89 

re  quired.^  The  justification  by  philosophy  of  a  reli- 
gious view  of  the  world  will  always  centre  about  the 
clearing  away  of  objections  raised ;  apart  from  such 
difficulties  there  never  would  any  need  have  been 
felt  for  evidence  beyond  the  evidence  that  comes 
from  natural  instincts  met  and  satisfied.  Accord- 
ingly there  is  no  real  cause  to  complain  if  certain 
things  be  taken  at  the  start  as  having  a  presumption 
in  their  favor,  provided  one  is  ready  to  meet  fairly 
all  definite  and  positively  grounded  attacks  upon 
his  position.  One  has  the  right  within  reason  to 
abridge  the  difficulties  of  his  task  by  appeal  to  the 
verdict  of  experience,  if  the  experience  to  which  he 
appeals  is  vital,  solid,  an4  sufficiently  universal/ 
To  build  a  philosophy  outright  from  the  ground  up, 
without  using  the  concrete  results  of  experience  that 
have  got  their  test  in  human  living,  is  indeed  a  sheer 
impossibility,  and  involves  an  outgrown  notion  of  the 
independence  of  the  mind  or  intellect.  And  further- 
more, even  in  the  case  of  a  postulate  of  religion  such 
as  is  apparently  contradicted  outright  by  some 
weighty  evidence  from  another  sphere  of  experience, 
we  should  still  remember  that  it  is  experience  which 
is  contradicting  itself,  and  that  the  coming  to  light 
of  contrary  testimony  does  not  forthwith  take  away 
all  significance  from  that  to  which  it  stands  in  opposi- 
tion. A  conception  which  should  succeed  in  recon- 
ciling the  conflict  would  have,  other  things  being 
equal,  a  better  claim  on  our  acceptance ;  to  denounce 
such  an  attempt  at  adjustment  as  mere  apologetics, 


QO  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

provided  it  be  not  forced  and  artificial,  is  entirely 
unreasonable./ 

/And  now,  furthermore,  it  is  of  course  to  be  under- 
stood that  the  attitude  which  is  here  taken  carries  with 
it  no  obligation  to  defend  the  Christian  faith,  or  any 
special  form  in  which  it  may  be  held,  in  its  historical 
entirety.  It  is  in  any  case  only  the  essential  and 
fundamental  character  of  it  as  an  account  of  the 
general  nature  of  reality  which  concerns  us;  the 
rich  gloss  of  dogmatic  formulation,  and  the  varied 
detail  due  to  the  play  of  imagination  on  the  luxu- 
riant content  of  the  religious  experience,  it  is  in  no 
wise  essential  for  a  general  philosophical  theory 
such  as  is  here  proposed  to  take  into  account,  what- 
ever the  judgment  as  to  the  truth  or  religious  value 
that  attaches  to  this.  But  now  what  is  to  be  regarded 
as  essential  in  Christianity  is  of  course  itself  also  a 
matter  of  interpretation;  different  men  may  hold 
very  different  opinions  about  it.  And  as  any  in- 
dividual thinker  must  in  the  end  select  the  opinion 
which  appeals  to  him  personally,  there  is  intro- 
duced here  another  element  of  what  from  the  purely 
historical  standpoint  we  have  to  call  the  arbitrary. 
But  this  is  kept  within  limits,  once  more,  to  the  extent 
to  which  the  interpretation  is  historically  grounded ; 
the  defect,  if  defect  we  choose  to  call  it,  does  not 
necessarily  cancel  the  presumptive  title  to  our  con- 
fidence which  religion  derives  from  experience.) 

'There  is  a  phrase  which  has  come  in  recent  years 
to  stand  pretty  definitely  as  the  accepted  summing 


RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY  91 

up  in  undogmatic  form  of  the  peculiar  message  of 
Christianity.  The  phrase  is  a  well-worn  one,  but 
that  very  fact  makes  it  better  fitted  to  serve  the  pur- 
pose which  is  here  required  of  it  —  to  represent  what, 
stripped  of  party  differences,  approaches  nearest 
to  common  ground  in  the  interpretation  of  what  is 
most  vital  and  central  in  the  Christian  religion  as 
its  founder  meant  it.  I  shall  assume,  then,  that  the 
meaning  of  Christianity  is  summed  up,  truly  so  far 
as  it  goes,  and  with  some  measure  at  least  of  adequacy, 
in  this  phrase :  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brother^ 
hood  of  man.  There  is  implied  here  as  an  intellec- 
tual background  — (for  we  are  not  concerned  at 
present  with  its  emotional  significance) — a  certain 
conception  of  reality/^nd  this  conception  it  is  which 
I  shall  endeavor  to  justify  philosophically.^  , 

(*The  attitude  which  I  am  taking  should  again  not 
be  misconstrued.  I  have  no  wish  to  claim  for  any 
conception  an  uncritical  acceptance  simply  because 
it  is  backed,  actually  or  in  appearance,  by  a  popular 
religious  belief. y  Philosophy  is  bound  to  justify 
its  results  in  terms  of  reason.  It  has  to  show,  not 
merely  that  they  are  capable  of  being  forced  into 
harmony  with  some  preconceived  opinion,  but  that 
they  are  themselves  the  most  satisfactory  and  the 
most  natural  rendering  of  the  facts.  It  must  take 
candid  and  full  account  of  inner  self-contradictions 
and  external  difficulties,  and  not  brush  them  aside 
too  lightly  without  a  real  reconciliation.  But  none 
the  less  is  it  true  that  a  system  which  is  the  outcome 


92  RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

of  a  logical  process  merely  is  not  on  a  level  with  one 
which  also  finds  points  of  contact  with  the  expression 
of  some  large  and  vital  human  experience.  A  view 
of  the  world  which  is  backed  by  widely  felt  religious 
needs  has  a  far  greater  weight  of  natural  plausibility 
than  could  possibly  belong  to  the  most  closely  rea- 
soned and  rigidly  articulated  system  that  should 
voice  no  more  than  the  logic  of  a  lonely  thinker^ 
fOi  the  presuppositions  which  would  seem  to  be 
implied  in  the  interpretation  just  referred  to,  there  are 
three  which  will  serve  as  the  main  text  of  the  subse- 
quent discussion.  )  For  religion  as  thus  formulated 
it  is  evident,  first,  that  the  objective  universe  is  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  meaning  or  value  primarily,  not 
bare  fact  or  bare  sequence  of  fact.  In  the  second 
place,  this  meaning  is  connected  fundamentally 
with  what  we  know  as  social  relationships,  and  there- 
fore the  existence  of  persons  is  the  most  important 
and  significant  thing  that  the  world  reveals.  And, 
finally,  beyond  and  above  the  existence  of  human 
persons  there  is  the  reality  of  God,  whose  nature 
involves,  however,  in  some  true  sense,  no  new  kind 
of  reality,  but  the  same  essential  fact  of  personality. 
j  I  shall  go  on  without  further  delay  to  consider  these 
points  in  detail,  commencing  for  various  reasons  with 
the  first  of  them  —  the  right  to  interpret  the  world  in 
terms  of  meaning,  or  purpose,  or  ends.  ) 


THE   ARGUMENT   FOR   PURPOSE 

THE  argument  from  design  has  without  doubt  been 
the  most  virile  and  the  most  convincing  of  all  the 
proofs  of  the  existence  of  God  that  have  been  offered 
for  men's  acceptance.  It  is  not  simply  the  ignorant 
and  the  unthinking  who  have  availed  themselves 
of  it.  Most  men  of  solid  intelligence  who  are  en- 
gaged in  practical  rather  than  in  speculative  pur- 
suits would  be  likely  to  feel  that  it  has  at  least  some 
measure  of  force,  and  among  philosophers  themselves 
it  has  enjoyed  a  general  repute,  and  has  commonly 
been  regarded  as  a  very  respectable  attempt  at  ar- 
gument even  when  its  cogency  has  been  denied. 

In  its  historical  form  the  argument  has  usually 
been  concerned  with  pointing  to  a  variety  of  particu- 
lar facts  in  the  outer  world  which  seemed  to  require 
for  their  understanding  a  directing  intelligence.  Any 
fact  that  revealed  order  and  harmony  might  be  used 
for  the  purpose  —  the  movements  of  the  stars  in 
their  courses,  for  example;  for  to  the  naive  mind 
order  and  intelligence  seem  one.  As,  however,  the 
conception  of  impersonal  law  came  to  familiarize 
itself,  the  idea  of  order  tended  to  be  replaced  by 
that  of  adaptation.  The  stress  was  laid  on  that  more 
limited  group  of  facts  in  the  case  of  which  some 

93 


94 


RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 


definite  and  intelligible  end  can  be  pointed  out,  for 
the  attainment  of  which  there  are  found  in  nature 
definite  instruments  that  serve  as  means.  Such  facts 
show  themselves  most  clearly  and  convincingly  in 
the  realm  of  animal  organs  and  functions,  and  ac- 
cordingly it  is  here  the  emphasis  came  finally  to 
be  centred. 

And  so  long  as  it  was  the  general  opinion  among 
scientists  that  animal  species  as  they  at  present  exist 
are  ultimate  and  irreducible,  the  opponent  of  teleology 
had  indeed  in  the  evidence  afforded  by  organic 
structure  a  very  strong  presumption  to  overcome. 
The  chances  against  the  haphazard  origin  at  a  single 
blow  of  so  complex  a  structure  as  the  human  body, 
for  example,  are  enormous,  as  any  candid  mind  must 
confess.  But  with  the  general  acceptance  of  the 
modem  doctrine  of  evolution  the  situation  has  un- 
doubtedly been  changed  to  some  extent.  The  theory^ 
of  evolution  has  beyond  dispute  altered  very  con- 
siderably the  emphasis  in  the  older  argument  from 
design.  It  is  at  least  impossible  any  longer,  in  ac- 
counting for  the  existence  of  an  organ  like  the  eye, 
to  accept  the  notion  of  a  designer  who  stands  apart 
from  his  work  and  creates  it  outright  by  manufacture 
after  the  analogy  of  a  human  workman.  If  things 
come  into  being  by  a  process  of  gradual  growth,  then 
this  point  in  the  comparison,  which  historically  was 
a  fundamental  one,  clearly  breaks  down.  On  the 
other  hand,  that  the  weakening  of  some  of  its  original 
points  of  support  is  bound  to  result  in  the  downfall 


THE  ARGUMENT   FOR   PURPOSE  95 

of  the  whole  structure  is  by  no  means  self-evident. 
For  the  most  part  the  defenders  of  teleology  have 
felt  themselves  called  upon  to  shift  their  ground 
rather  than  abandon  it.     More  and  more  purpose 
has  taken  the  form  of  an  immanent  fact  instead  of 
an  external  and  arbitrary  one ;  the  reality  of  growth 
has  been  admitted,  but  the  attempt  has  been  made  ' 
to  show  that  between  growth  and  purpose  there  is  * 
no  necessary  contradiction. 

The  classical  analogy  that  represents  the  force 
which  the  older  argument  from  design  was  supposed 
to  have  is  found  in  the  comparison  of  an  organ  — 
such,  for  example,  as  the  eye  —  to  a  manufactured 
article  like  a  watch.  The  change  of  emphasis  in 
the  new  argument  will  appear  if  we  consider  what 
sort  of  analogy  it  will  be  necessary  under  these  new 
conditions  to  substitute  for  the  analogy  of  the  watch. 
If  we  look  to  any  complicated  series  of  movements 
which  human  activity  involves,  —  the  movements, 
for  example,  of  an  artist  painting  a  picture,  —  these 
might  seem  to  us  for  a  time  as  truly  random  and  un- 
purposive  as  the  workings,  looked  at  in  any  limited 
cross  section,  of  the  material  universe.  But  if  we 
were  to  follow  the  process  closely,  there  would  begin 
to  be  revealed,  in  spite  of  apparent  perplexities  and 
irrelevancies,  certain  lines  of  tendency,  which  would 
lead  us  to  suspect  that  more  might  be  present  than 
we  had  at  first  imagined.  And  as  the  picture  began 
to  grow  in  defmiteness  and  outline  we  should  of  course 
conclude  that  here  was  no  chance  play  of  random 


96  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

movements,  but  that  a  pervading  intelligence  was 
at  work  to  give  meaning  to  the  whole  act.  The 
main  point  of  the  comparison,  it  will  be  noticed,  is 
now  shifted  from  the  mere  adaptation  of  the  product 
to  the  directed  activity  of  the  process,  the  continued 
and  developing  series  of  changes  moving  toward  an 
end  which  is  not  for  the  artist's  consciousness  inde- 
pendent of  them,  but  which  is  present  in  them  and 
gives  them  meaning.  Furthermore  —  and  this  is 
a  point  specially  to  be  noticed  —  the  evidence  for 
purpose  is  not  to  be  found  primarily  in  some  particu- 
lar adaptation  or  group  of  adaptations,  but  in  the 
process  as  a  whole.  It  is  the  order  and  meaning 
gradually  revealing  itself  in  the  whole  continuous 
act,  and  not  any  single  fact  out  of  relation  to  the 
series  of  which  it  is  a  part.  If  one  wishes  to  keep 
closer  to  the  historical  analogy,  the  watchmaker's 
activity  again  might  serve  as  an  example.  But  the 
point  of  the  comparison  is  changed  all  along  the  line. 
For  the  older  argument  the  watch  represents  a  par- 
ticular organism  or  organ ;  the  manufacture  of  the 
watch,  the  way  in  which  this  is  brought  into  existence. 
And  it  is  just  this  method  of  manufacture  on  which 
the  theory  of  evolution  casts  doubt.  For  the  newer 
point  of  view  the  making  of  the  watch  stands  for  the 
whole  process  of  evolution,  and  the  watch  itself  for 
that  outcome  of  the  process  —  the  present  state  of 
things,  namely  —  in  the  light  of  which  we  are  able 
to  look  back  and  see  meaning  in  the  earlier  stages. 
Is  there  anything  therefore  in  the  world  process  as 


THE  ARGUMENT   FOR  PURPOSE  97 

a  whole  which  tends  to  make  it  at  all  analogous  to 
the  activities  of  human  life,  and  to  create  the  belief 
that  there  is  to  be  found  in  it  a  purpose  and  intelli- 
gence at  work  —  that  it  has  a  meaning  ?  Now  this 
at  least  is  hardly  doubtful,  that  men  have  what  is 
naturally  a  very  strong  tendency  to  interpret  the 
universe  in  this  way;  and  such  a  tendency  is  far 
from  being  undermined  by  the  results  of  modern  , 
science.  Indeed  the  theory  of  evolution  brings  out  | 
for  the  first  time  in  clear  relief  the  essentially  dra- 
matic quality  of  creation.  That  something  more  than  ; 
blind  and  haphazard  forces  are  at  work,  bearing  in 
themselves  no  relation  of  prevision  to  the  results 
which  actually  are  accomplished,  is  the  first  and 
natural  presumption  which  the  spectacle  of  the 
world's  history  raises  as  it  unrolls  itself  in  the  imag- 
ination —  a  presumption  which  it  is  not  easy  to 
eradicate  so  long  as  the  eyes  are  not  kept  too  exclu- 
sively on  the  details,  and  the  whole  massed  effect  is 
allowed  to  exert  its  influence.  When  we  call  before 
us  the  full  sweep  of  the  world's  advance  from  the 
time  when  it  was  a  mere  whirling  and  fiery  mist, 
and  see  how  marvellously  out  of  its  seeming  chaos 
there  grows  order  and  intricate  regularity,  how  the 
wonders  of  plant  and  brute  life  come  into  being,  how 
finally  man  appears,  the  paragon  of  animals,  with 
eyes  to  see  the  beauty  of  the  world  and  reason  to 
bring  its  forces  into  subjection,  and,  most  of  all,  with 
the  power  to  create  the  ideal  world  of  truth  and  honor, 
righteousness  and  love;  when  we  see  these  super- 


98  RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

sensible  ideals  more  and  more  ruling  his  life,  till  we 
have  the  promise  of  a  society  wherein  the  poet's 
dream  and  the  prophet's  forecasting  shall  be  an 
actual  thing,  —  when  all  this,  I  say,  comes  before  us, 
it  is  not  easy  to  resign  ourselves  to  say  that  all  has 
merely  happened  so. 

A  general  objection  may  of  course  be  brought 
against  the  whole  argument.     It  may  be  said  that 
we  know  in  terms  of  our  own  experience  the  meaning 
of  artistic  or  of  other  human  activities,  and  so  are 
in  a  position  to  discover  the  meaning  in  the  outcome. 
But  the  case  of  the  cosmic  process  is  a  wholly  differ- 
ent one.    Here  there  is  no  clew  in  our  experience 
to  the  purpose  involved,  even  supposing  that  a  pur- 
pose exists;  and  so  the  issue  tells  us  nothing  about 
design  or  absence  of  design.     But  this  is  surely  not 
completely  true.     For  what  is  the  outcome  of  the 
process?    At  least  one  not  unimportant  aspect  of ') 
the  outcome  is  man,  and  man's  life  as  it  reveals  itself  ' 
in  history  and  human  society  —  things  which  we  | 
know  and  of  which  we  are  a  part.    And  it  is  this  : 
which  is  the  real  backbone  of  the  whole  argument. 
Were  we  to  leave  out  the  reference  to  human  life, 
then  doubtless  the  impression  of  purposi\Teness  would 
be  weakened.     But  we  cannot  omit  such  a  reference, 
for  it  is  in  human  life  that  the  process  of  development 
has  in  a  real  sense  culminated.    There  is  nothing  > 
inherently  absurd,  therefore,  in  the  supposition  that  , 
a  question  about  the  meaning  of  things  may  in  its  j 
larger  and  more  general  aspects  be  susceptible  of  ) 


THE  ARGUMENT   FOR  PURPOSE  99 

an  answer.  Why  should  we  not  hold  that  this  mean- 
ing is  adumbrated  in  the  meaning  which  actually  is 
found  appearing  in  human  life  and  human  history? 
That  life  has  a  meaning,  and  that  this  meaning  is  in 
part  actually  open  to  us,  is  no  far-fetched  speculation, 
but  the  veritable  result  of  experience.  It  is  the  com- 
mon assumption  of  mankind.  Here  and  there,  no 
doubt,  the  thwarting  of  the  ends  with  which  he  has 
identified  himself  leads  the  individual  to  question 
the  accepted  formulae,  and  to  feel  hopelessly  that 
the  riddle  of  existence  is  still  a  mystery.  But  a  mood 
is  not  a  philosophy,  though  too  often  it  is  taken  to 
be  one.  And  there  are  various  things  that  may  be 
said  of  this  particular  attitude.  It  is,  to  begin  with, 
the  attitude  of  individuals ;  and  if  to  these  the  reali- 
zation of  life's  meaning  has  been  denied,  at  least  we 
should  not  forget  that  despair  is  not  the  character- 
istic note  of  the  human  spirit.  Others  ha ve^  felt 
that  with  life  has  come  the  insight  into  something 
of  its  significance,  and  this  positive  fact  should  be 
set  alongside  the  negative.  Furthermore,  it  may 
well  be  doubted  whether  the  one  who  protests  his 
inability  to  unravel  the  tangle  of  life  really  means 
in  most  cases  all  that  he  may  seem  to  say.  That  we  i 
cannot  get  at  the  whole  meaning,  that  there  are  per- 
plexities which  weigh  heavy  on  the  spirit,  that  much 
is  blind  and  confused  after  all  our  weary  searching, 
-  this  without  any  doubt  is  true.  And  it  is  easy  and  i 
natural  oftentimes  to  put  lack  of  finality  in  terms  of 
a  complete  ignorance.  In  particular,  protest  against 


IOO        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

the  banalities  of  a  too  credulous  and  narrow  inter- 
pretation of  life  may  often  find  it  convenient  to  pose 
as  entire  negation.  But  if  one  makes  allowance  for 
this,  and  for  a  certain  intellectual  affectation  which 
is  pretty  apt  to  creep  into  at  least  the  literary  repre- 
sentations of  the  tendency,  it  is  very  unlikely  that 
in  many  cases  such  protests  are  to  be  taken  quite 
literally.  He  surely  is  most  unfortunate  —  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  he  is  as  rare  as  he  is  unfor- 
tunate —  who  can  honestly  feel  that  neither  in  human 
love,  nor  in  social  service,  nor  in  art,  or  goodness,  or 
religion,  has  he  caught  one  least  glimpse  of  a  real 
and  satisfying  value  that  attests  to  him  its  foundation 
in  the  structure  of  the  universe.  And  finally,  even 
if  the  failure  seems  absolute,  the  very  despair  which 
accompanies  it  is  witness  to  how  deep-seated  the 
demand  is.  It  is  only  because  we  feel  so  profoundly 
that  there  ought  to  be,  that  there  must  somewhere 
(  be,  a  meaning,  that  the  tragedy  of  failure  is  so  com- 
plete. 

The  point  I  am  trying  to  make  is,  then,  that  it  is 
no  mere  speculative  tour  de  force  which  finds  a  mean- 
ing in  human  life,  but  instead  the  deep  and  perma- 
nent experience  of  the  race.  From  life  we  cannot 
possibly  eliminate  for  the  natural  sense  the  idea  of 
intelligence  and  reason.  This  is  the  essence  of  our 
understanding  of  it.  We  therefore  are  justified  in 
saying  that  the  teleological  interpretation  of  the 
process  of  evolution  is  not  arbitrary.  We  are  not 
bringing  to  bear  a  mere  analogy  from  another  sphere. 


THE  ARGUMENT   FOR  PURPOSE  IOI 

The  meaning  is  inherent  in  the  process  itself.  For 
human  life  is  not  something  outside  the  process  of 
evolution,  as  one  might  suppose  often  from  the  words 
of  those  who  would  rule  it  out  as  a  source  for  the 
interpretation  of  reality.  It  is  an  essential  part  of 
evolution.  It  is  in  some  sense,  as  I  have  said,  the 
outcome  of  the  whole  development.  And  therefore 
to  take  it  as  throwing  light  upon  the  question  of 
meaning  —  a  very  partial  light  indeed,  but  yet  real 
so  far  as  it  goes  —  is  not  arbitrary,  but  only  what  the 
conception  of  evolution  itself  gives  us  a  right  to  do. 
We  are  in  a  position  to  see  the  meaning  because  in 
us  the  meaning  has  received  a  partial  expression. 
Not  that  we  need  to  hold,  once  more,  that  the  entire 
universe  in  its  onward  march  has  had  in  view  noth- 
ing but  the  race  of  man.  But  the  life  of  conscious- 
ness and  reason  which  reveals  itself  in  man,  though 
it  may  have  many  another  appearance  beside  — 
what  reason  can  be  given  why  this  should  not  have 
enough  of  dignity  within  itself  to  stand  for  the  inner 
meaning  of  the  developing  world?  And  man's  life 
itself  will  be  a  real  and  integral  part  of  this  meaning, 
though  it  be  only  a  part.  This  will  not  imply  that 
the  whole  significance  of  material  things,  for  exam- 
ple, is  summed  up  in  their  practical  utility  to  man. 
But  there  is  no  absurdity  in  supposing  that  this  is 
a  real  aspect  of  their  meaning.  It  is  this  too,  though 
it  may  be  vastly  more  than  this.  We  need  not  sup- 
pose that  cork  trees  were  grown  for  the  sole  and  ex- 
press convenience  of  the  bottlers.  This  is  on  the 


102         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

face  of  it  absurd.  And  yet  in  point  of  fact  corks 
are  made  from  the  cork  tree,  and  they  fill  a  certain 
place  in  life.  And  so  they  cannot  be  wholly  foreign 
to  a  reality  which  covers  the  entire  field  of  existence. 
In  the  displacement  of  the  theological  by  the  scientific 
spirit  we  have  passed  to  an  entirely  exaggerated  dis- 
paragement of  the  importance  of  the  human  element 
in  the  universe.  Science  itself  should  have  taught 
us  that  it  is  never  safe  to  rule  a  thing  out  from  our 
explanation  just  because  to  us  it  seems  slight  and 
trivial.  If  corks  are  made,  we  must  suppose  that 
even  cork-making  enters  into  the  meaning  of  the 
cork  tree  as  an  objectively  valid  fact,  when  the  ob- 
jectivity of  a  thing  is  taken,  as  it  ought  to  be,  to 
include  its  social  relations  as  well.  The  very  pos- 
sibility of  extracting  from  a  thing  a  value  shows  that 
the  possibility  was  in  it,  and  therefore  that  it  is  a 
veritable  part  of  a  universe  which  sums  up  all  actual 
relationships.  In  very  truth 

"  the  spacious  North 
Exists  to  draw  our  virtue  forth," 

if  experience  shows  that  virtue  has  thus  the  power 
of  being  called  to  expression,  provided  we  do  not 
commit  ourselves  to  the  theory  that  it  exists  for  noth- 
ing else. 

There  is  a  more  abstract  and  general  consideration 
which  may  be  used  to  strengthen  this  conclusion. 
The  scientist  has  been  very  apt  to  regard  the  world 
primarily  in  terms  of  its  component  elements.  These 
are  the  only  necessary  presuppositions,  the  only 


THE   ARGUMENT  FOR  PURPOSE  103 

things  truly  real.  Their  changing  relations  to  one 
another  and  the  varying  combinations  into  which 
they  enter  are  incidental  merely,  and  it  is  unnecessary 
to  take  them  into  account  in  summing  up  the  inner 
character  of  reality.  It  may  well  be  that  there  are 
good  practical  reasons  for  this  attitude ;  philosophi- 
cally, however,  there  are  great  difficulties  in  taking 
it  as  ultimate.  The  reality  of  the  world  is  the  whole 
and  not  the  parts.  Any  other  supposition  would 
result  in  rendering  unintelligible  the  fact  of  inter- 
connection or  interaction.  But  then  it  follows  that 
any  result  that  actually  comes  about  is  essential 
to  the  nature  of  reality,  and  has  a  distinct  ground  in 
the  structure  of  the  world,  not  an  arbitrary  and 
chance  connection  with  it.  It  is  irrational  to  take 
any  collection  of  atomic  parts  at  an  arbitrarily 
selected  point  of  time,  and  hold  that  later  develop- 
ments are  simply  chance  by-products  of  laws  which 
can  be  adequately  understood  in  terms  of  the  way 
they  then  and  there  express  themselves.  Even  at 
the  point  of  time  we  have  selected  there  is  another 
element  that  needs  to  be  considered.  The  existing 
combination  of  elements  —  a  combination  which  had 
it  been  different  would  have  brought  about  different 
results  —  is  another  and  vital  part  of  the  situation. 
But  furthermore  it  is  quite  impossible  to  take  the 
existing  condition  of  the  world  at  any  point  or  sec- 
tion of  time  as  a  complete  statement  of  reality.  The 
world  is  a  process  and  includes  duration.  What 
is  coming  to  be  is  in  some  sense  equally  real,  equally 


IO4         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

a  part  of  existence,  with  what  is  or  what  was.  Ac- 
cordingly we  cannot  hope  to  be  in  a  position  to  sum 
up  reality  except  as  we  do  take  account  of  its  de- 
veloping self-expression.  The  process  of  evolution 
must  needs  be  defined,  for  philosophy,  not  by  its  be- 
ginning, but  by  its  completer  unfolding.  If  we  find 
that  certain  characteristics  appear  as  development  pro- 
ceeds, we  have  so  much  more  data  for  our  description ; 
and  should  these  elements  fail  to  appear  clearly  at  the 
earlier  stages,  then  we  must  take  our  first  description 
as  imperfect.  In  a  true  sense  —  and  the  principle  is 
one  which  will  be  more  than  once  utilized  in  the  sub- 
sequent argument  —  reality  is  most  adequately  to  be 
interpreted  in  terms,  not  of  facts,  but  of  ideals,  if  by 
ideals  we  mean,  not  mere  arbitrary  imaginings,  but 
the  hidden  trend,  the  suggestion,  not  fully  realized 
as  yet,  of  what  nevertheless  in  the  future  will  stand 
revealed  as  the  vital  germ  of  things  to  come.  To 
emphasize  mere  brute  present  fact,  what  already  has 
been  brought  to  the  light  of  day,  summed  up  and 
made  fully  actual,  is  to  miss  the  whole  significance  of 
evolution.  He  does  not  show  the  truest  or  even  the 
most  practical  understanding  of  human  nature  who 
prides  himself  on  knowing  men  as  they  are,  when 
that  knowledge  takes  account  of  nothing  more  than 
the  average  everyday  motives  and  weaknesses  of 
man  reduced  to  his  lowest  terms,  and  who  denies 
all  ideal  possibilities  that  are  not  exemplified  in  the 
habitual  conduct  of  the  ordinary  citizen  in  his  ordi- 
nary mood.  Rather  he  is  wisest,  in  the  long  run  at 


THE  ARGUMENT    FOR   PURPOSE  105 

least,  who  detects  the  rarer  and  more  hidden  capac- 
ities which,  though  sporadic  now,  are  destined  to 
flower  and  become  regnant  in  man  as  he  has  the 
power  to  be  and  shall  be.  And  the  same  thing  is 
true  as  a  general  principle  of  interpretation.  The 
expectation  that  we  can  best  understand  a  process 
by  looking  back  to  its  beginnings  is  only  another 
expression  of  the  same  outgrown  standpoint  which 
led  Rousseau  to  identify  human  happiness  and  virtue 
with  a  primitive  state  of  nature.  A  philosophy  which 
pretends  to  be  empirical  condemns  itself  by  such  a 
procedure.  It  deliberately  sets  up  a  limited  and 
arbitrarily  selected  fraction  of  experience  —  itself  a 
merely  hypothetical  experience  even,  —  and  refuses 
to  allow  any  additional  amount  of  experience  to 
modify  this.  Especially  does  the  difficulty  come 
out  when  we  have  regard  to  one  in  particular  of  the 
results  of  evolution  —  the  fact  of  human  conscious- 
ness and  intelligence.  That  intelligence  should 
have  sprung  from  a  ground  itself  wholly  unintelli- 
gent is  a  consequence  which  one  cannot  be  blamed 
if  he  hesitates  a  long  while  before  accepting.  If, 
as  Mr.  Balfour  has  pointed  out,  intelligence  comes 
from  a  universe  in  which  there  is  no  tendency  what- 
ever to  produce  truth  rather  than  falsehood,  it  is  at 
least  an  awkward  admission  for  a  theory  which 
must  base  its  whole  belief  in  evolution  on  the  testi- 
mony of  this  same  intelligence  in  favor  of  whose 
veracity  there  is  thus  absolutely  no  presumption. 
There  is  then,  once  more,  a  solid  ground  in  expe- 


106         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

rience,  which  has  speculative  justification  as  well, 
for  regarding  the  meaning  which  is  discoverable  in 
human  life  as  a  real  light  thrown  upon  the  inner 
constitution  of  the  world.  It  is  of  course  always 
possible  to  stop  with  the  value  of  life  taken  by  itself 
as  a  fact  of  experience,  and  refuse  to  consider  its 
connection  with  the  profounder  conditions  out  of 
which  man  springs.  Such  an  attitude  is,  I  believe, 
not  a  natural  one.  The  will  to  explain  would  nor- 
mally be  led,  unless  constraint  were  put  upon  it,  to 
bring  the  two  together  and  find  a  continuity  between 
them.  We  do  not  readily  isolate  the  central  fact  of 
man's  nature  from  the  process  out  of  which  it  ap- 
pears to  issue,  and  deny  to  it  the  ability  to  throw 
any  light  whatever  on  its  source.  Its  place  for  reason 
lies  within  the  whole  world  development,  and  not  as 
a  miraculous  and  inexplicable  sport.  However,  it 
is  to  be  granted  that  if  one  feels  no  need  to  extend 
hypothesis  beyond  the  given  fact  that  value  can  be 
felt  by  man,  there  is  no  actual  compulsion  to  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  him.  I  only  repeat,  what  has 
been  said  before,  that  on  one's  interpretation  of  the 
needs  of  life  rather  than  on  logic  will  depend  the  at- 
titude he  will  here  adopt.  And  for  one  who  is  not 
satisfied  to  exclude  some  reference  to  things  in  them- 
selves as  a  source  of  his  own  sense  of  realized  values, 
there  is  no  way  of  barring  such  an  extension  of  be- 
lief as  is  involved  in  the  teleological  conception  of 
the  whole  world  process.  He  recognizes  this  as  an 
hypothesis.  But  it  is  an  hypothesis  which  fills  out 


THE  ARGUMENT  FOR  PURPOSE  1 07 

in  a  significant  way  his  own  experience,  and  which 
has  behind  it  a  sufficient  weight  of  natural  evidence 
to  make  it  seem  plausible,  provided  no  counter 
arguments  are  to  be  brought  up  strong  enough  to 
overcome  its  force.  That  there  are  such  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  the  belief  is  of  course  to  be  admitted, 
and  it  is  to  these  that  I  wish  now  briefly  to  turn. 

And  first,  I  will  consider  the  form  of  the  difficulty 
which  is  most  directly  the  outcome  of  the  modern 
doctrine  of  evolution.  For  while,  when  the  problem 
is  stated  in  large  terms,  it  may  still  be  maintained  with 
good  show  of  reason  that  the  argument  for  purpose 
in  the  universe  is  a  strong  one,  the  question  may 
certainly  be  asked  whether  if  we  turn  attention  to 
the  details  of  the  process  instead  the  result  will  still 
remain  the  same.  Will  not  the  investigation  of 
the  methods  which  evolution  actually  has  followed 
after  all  turn  the  scale  the  other  way?  For  if  we 
find  at  each  separate  step  a  condition  of  affairs  which 
strongly  suggests  that  only  such  forces  are  in  play 
as  are  out  of  all  intended  relation  to  the  result  that 
actually  comes  about,  will  not  the  evidence  for  the 
purposiveness  of  the  process  as  a  whole  necessarily 
be  compromised? 

Is  there,  then,  to  be  found  in  the  more  detailed 
aspects  of  the  situation  anything  to  suggest  so  strongly 
the  notion  of  a  merely  fortuitous  and  chance  result 
as  to  overcome  the  force  of  the  general  considerations 
which  have  been  brought  forward?  Of  course  it 
is  just  this  impression  that  Darwin's  theory  of  nat- 


I08        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

ural  selection  has  made  upon  many  minds.  If  all 
the  facts  are  sufficiently  accounted  for  as  due  to  the 
selection  of  minute  variations  which  are  all  the  time 
taking  place  indefinitely  in  every  direction,  it  may 
easily  seem  superfluous  to  call  in  any  directing  agency 
looking  specially  toward  the  results  which  as  a  matter 
of  fact  come  about.  Rather,  the  circumstances  seem 
to  render  improbable  any  such  directing  influence. 
For  if  the  variations  are  really  indeterminate,  the 
reason  for  looking  for  a  determining  cause  seems  to 
be  removed.  It  is  not  easy  in  the  present  state  of 
uncertainty  among  scientists  as  to  the  actual  method 
or  methods  of  evolution  to  discuss  the  matter  in  a 
satisfactory  way,  but  a  few  general  considerations 
may  not  be  misleading.  This  accordingly  is  the 
question :  Does  natural  selection  compel  us  to  accept 
as  probable  the  fortuitous  character  of  the  results 
of  evolution? 

Now  in  the  first  place,  we  should  not  lose  sight  of 
the  fact  that  whatever  his  attitude  toward  a  large  and 
inclusive  end,  the  evolutionist  does  necessarily  use 
the  concept  of  end  in  his  explanation.  The  whole 
doctrine  of  natural  selection  is  based  upon  the 
existence  of  organic  ends.  The  very  notion  of  an 
organism  involves  the  relation  of  means  to  end,  and 
not  simply  of  antecedents  to  a  succeeding  result. 
The  organ  is  for  the  sake  of  the  unitary  life  of  the 
organism.  I  shall  not  dwell  upon  this,  however,  for 
the  reason  that  its  larger  bearings  are  not  altogether 
easy  to  settle.  Nevertheless  it  is  worthy  of  con- 


THE  ARGUMENT   FOR  PURPOSE  109 

sideration  by  the  thick-and-thin  repudiator  of 
ends. 

The  second  point  has  already  been  pretty  directly 
suggested  in  the  discussion  of  a  few  pages  back.  The 
question  of  beginnings  is  one  which  needs  to  be 
handled  with  a  good  deal  of  caution  in  arguing  about 
evolution.  There  is,  without  doubt,  danger  in  try- 
ing to  pick  out  a  few  points  where  we  can  appeal  to 
a  miracle  of  intervention  while  allowing  that  else- 
where the  process  has  been  continuous  and  natural. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  also  danger  in  letting  our 
conviction  that  the  process  must  have  been  continuous, 
and  therefore  that  nothing  must  appear  save  what 
can  be  discovered  in  that  which  goes  before,  lead  to 
a  minimizing  of  real  difficulties. 

Now  while  in  general,  admitting  the  existence  of 
a  given  organ,  there  seems  no  specially  difficult 
problem  involved  in  its  indefinite  variation  in  size  and 
efficiency,  the  case  is  not  wholly  the  same  when  we 
consider  the  origin  of  the  organ  itself.  We  are  so 
used  to  the  fact  that  certain  variations  have  taken 
place,  we  are  so  familiar  with  the  organs  and  func- 
tions which  actually  have  appeared,  that  their  ap- 
pearance causes  us  no  surprise.  But,  after  all,  the 
thing  is  not  so  simple  or  obvious.  There  is  at  least 
some  occasion  for  reflection  in  the  fact  that  matter 
has  had  in  it  the  capacity  for  varying  in  these  particu- 
lar, and  on  the  whole  rather  striking  ways.  That 
such  facts  have  had  the  power  of  issuing  from  the 
universal  womb  of  things  as  bone  and  skin,  blood 


OF  THE 

UNIVERS! 

OF 


IIO        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE    WORLD 

and  muscular  tissue,  nerve  cells  with  their  remarkable 
forms  of  specialized  activity,  and  all  the  variations  of 
living  matter  each  with  its  own  peculiar  properties, 
is  not  the  less  surprising  because  of  their  familiarity. 
One  gets  at  times  the  same  impression  as  in  the  fairy 
tales,  when  the  hero  has  but  to  feel  the  need  and  ex- 
press the  wish,  and  whatever  he  wants  is  at  his  elbow. 
No  doubt  it  will  be  an  advantage  to  the  organism  to 
have  its  surface  tickled  into  sensitiveness  by  the  sun's 
rays  so  that  sight  is  the  result.  But  surely  we  might 
stop  to  wonder  a  little  when  straightway  we  find  the 
thing  is  done.  Of  course,  if  one  can  assume  at  the 
start  a  matter  which  is  potentially  anything  and 
everything,  he  will  have  no  trouble  in  supposing  that, 
given  time  enough,  anything  may  come  out  of  it. 
But  this  is  not  a  scientific  assumption.  And  when 
we  add  the  very  considerable  difficulty  of  explain- 
ing scientifically,  in  utility  terms,  the  survival  of  such 
slight  beginnings  as  the  theory  of  chance  variations 
naturally  demands,  the  meaning  of  the  word  "for- 
tuitous" no  longer  seems  so  clear  or  its  force  so 
self-evident. 

The  third  suggestion  I  would  bring  up  may  start 
with  a  question  of  fact  suggested  by  the  last  para- 
graph. Is  it  so  that  variations  are  apparently  for- 
tuitous and  without  recognizable  direction?  It  is 
too  early  perhaps  to  speak  with  certainty,  but  there 
would  appear  to  be  a  tendency  among  naturalists 
away  from  such  a  conclusion.  The  further  inves- 
tigation is  carried,  the  more  reason  there  seems  for 


THE  ARGUMENT  FOR  PURPOSE       III 

believing  that  variations  have  taken  place  along 
what  to  some  extent  are  determinate  and  definite 
lines,  and  therefore  that  we  are  compelled  to  seek 
for  causes  of  such  determinate  variations  lying  back 
of  the  action  of  natural  selection.  Unfortunately 
there  seems  to  be  at  present  nothing  like  an  agree- 
ment about  the  nature  of  these  supplementary  fac- 
tors in  evolution.  But  to  whatever  conclusion  we 
come,  one  thing  would  apparently  in  any  case  have 
to  be  true.  In  order  to  get  the  process  going  at 
all,  it  will  be  necessary  to  call  in  a  number  of  coop- 
erating laws  and  tendencies.  Even  the  doctrine  of 
natural  selection  implies  more  than  mere  chance 
variations.  These  would  mean  nothing  were  it  not 
for  the  fact  that  animals  reproduce,  that  certain 
definite  laws  govern  heredity,  that  there  is  a  vast 
number  of  offspring  brought  into  the  world,  that 
conditions  of  life  make  necessary  a  struggle  for  food, 
and  other  things  too  numerous  to  mention.  Indeed, 
indirectly  there  is  no  aspect  of  the  universe  which  is 
not  somehow  involved.  The  same  thing  is  even 
more  evident  if  we  recognize  supplementary  factors 
in  evolution.  So  if,  for  example,  we  find  that  the 
direct  action  of  the  environment  is  concerned  in 
producing  variations,  either  immediately,  or  in  such 
a  roundabout  way  as  is  involved  in  the  doctrine 
of  organic  selection.  It  seems  a  simple  and  natural 
thing  to  appeal  to  the  fact  that  a  change  of  food  affects 
the  body,  or  that  a  muscle  grows  by  exercise.  Never- 
theless, we  should  not  forget  that  we  are  calling  these 


112        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

things  to  our  assistance.  Were  it  not  for  such  useful 
cooperative  agencies  being  at  hand  when  needed,  we 
should  not  be  able  to  get  our  development  started. 

And  the  point  I  wish  to  make  is  this:  while  it 
may  seem  natural  to  hold  to  the  fortuitous  character 
of  the  result  so  long  as  we  are  looking  only  at  one 
separate  aspect  or  factor  of  the  problem,  there  is 
distinctly  less  reason  to  do  so  if  we  keep  the  whole 
set  of  cooperating  conditions  in  view.  And  yet  for 
an  adequate  account  we  are  bound  to  do  this.  The 
fact  is  not  variation,  indefinite  or  otherwise,  but 
variation  occurring  in  a  world  capable  of  utilizing 
it  for  a  constant  growth.  The  concurrent  conditions 
and  their  cooperation  are  essential,  and  the  coinci- 
dence that  they  are  there  is  not  to  be  forgotten  in 
estimating  the  likelihood  that  chance  should  have 
brought  about  the  result.  Of  course,  if  we  are  per- 
mitted to  assume  all  of  these  as  given,  then  possibly 
chance  may  be  allowed  to  do  the  little  work  that  is 
left.  But  to  take  them  for  granted  is  precisely  what, 
if  we  are  trying  to  get  at  a  comprehensive  and  final 
statement  of  the  world,  we  are  not  allowed  to  do. 

It  remains  true  that  no  considerations  such  as 
these  which  I  have  just  mentioned  will  do  away 
with  a  certain  appearance  of  indirectness  and  ten- 
tativeness  in  the  course  by  which  things  have  devel- 
oped to  their  present  state.  Abstractly,  however,  the 
presence  of  a  considerable  element  of  trial  and  ex- 
periment would  not  be  incompatible  with  purpose 
or  meaning.  It  might  indeed  modify  somewhat 


THE  ARGUMENT   FOR  PURPOSE  113 

our  notion  of  the  power  and  wisdom  that  lay  behind 
the  purpose.  But  it  would  not  necessarily  lead  us 
to  deny  the  purpose  itself.  If  we  find  this  element 
of  indirectness  actually  characterizing  the  process, 
the  only  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to  accept  it,  and  find 
such  reasons  for  it  as  we  may.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
a  reason  is  close  at  hand.  It  has  been  implied  that 
for  our  natural  thought  the  meaning  of  evolution 
lies  in  the  sphere  of  consciousness,  the  life  of  intelli- 
gent beings.  But  the  process  which  is  best  fitted 
for  developing  a  conscious  and  intelligent  being,  as 
we  know  intelligence,  is  a  process  of  struggle,  of  trial, 
of  tentative  experiment.  Now  of  course  the  original 
production  of  physical  variations  lies,  in  large  part  at 
least,  outside  the  control  of  consciousness.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  may  be  held  with  some  show  of  rea- 
son that  the  relative  indefiniteness  in  the  direction 
of  congenital  variations  has  a  direct  relation  to  the 
bringing  out  of  the  capacities  implicit  in  the  conscious 
life.  If  the  advance  in  evolution  lay  in  the  hands  of 
a  force  which  simply  pushed  the  organism  ahead 
inevitably  from  step  to  step  without  live  alternatives, 
consciousness  as  we  know  it  apparently  would  never 
have  had  any  existence.  Development  would  have 
been,  as  habit  now  is,  automatic,  with  conscious- 
ness either  absent  or  quiescent.  It  is  the  presence  of 
such  conditions  as  the  struggle  for  existence  implies 
that  has  been  the  necessary  incentive  to  mental,  and 
later  on  to  spiritual  growth.  Struggle  and  competi- 
tion are  required  to  call  the  dormant  powers  into 


114         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

exercise.  And  this  means  that  the  quality  which  is 
preserved  gets  its  advantage  by  a  process  which 
involves  the  active  putting  forth  of  something  like 
effort  and  blind  will,  and  therefore  that  it  does  not 
occupy  the  field  alone,  but  appears  at  first  as  only 
one  among  a  number  of  competing  possibilities. 
These  less  favorable  variations  pass  away,  seemingly 
without  result.  But  they  may  have  in  reality  a 
very  important  result,  if  they  have  been  the  occasion 
for  calling  forth  qualities  in  the  realm  of  the  con- 
scious life  which  are  to  constitute  ultimately  the 
significance  of  the  whole  evolutionary  process. 

If  then  conscious  life  and  its  meaning  do  represent 
the  goal  of  evolution,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  that 
development  has  not  moved  mechanically  and  in- 
evitably, driven  by  forces  that  can  suffer  no  deviation 
from  a  straight  line.  Something  in  the  nature  of 
natural  selection  is  what  we  might  expect.  Again 
the  analogy  in  human  ends  is  instructive.  A  pro- 
cess of  mere  manufacture  does  not  indeed  allow  of 
deviations  without  showing  a  lack  either  of  wisdom  or 
of  power.  But  when  the  idea  of  growth  rules  rather 
than  of  manufacture,  the  case  is  different.  Take 
the  instance,  for  example,  of  the  teacher  who  deals 
with  human  material.  The  end  is  just  as  real,  of 
course,  as  in  the  analogy  of  the  watchmaker.  But 
because  it  is  a  higher  end,  it  cannot  be  reached  in  so 
direct  a  way.  There  is  no  true  education  unless 
there  is  a  chance  offered  to  make  mistakes.  The 
teacher  might  indeed  do  all  the  work  for  the  pupils. 


THE  ARGUMENT   FOR  PURPOSE  115 

Then  everything  would  move  forward  unhesitatingly 
and  without  the  need  of  apparently  futile  side  issues 
that  seem  to  end  only  in  failure.  But  the  seeming 
advantage  would,  of  course,  be  a  real  disadvantage. 
Not  only  does  the  apparent  randomness  of  the  pro- 
cess mean  no  lack  of  wisdom ;  no  other  method  would 
be  compatible  with  the  wisdom  that  is  real  and  far- 
seeing. 

I  have  considered  so  far  the  particular  objections 
against  teleology  which  are  derived  from  Darwin's 
theory  of  natural  selection,  as  these  are  the  ones  that 
have  been  most  pressed  in  recent  times.  And  I 
have  tried,  of  course,  not  to  settle  the  scientific  prob- 
lem of  the  method  of  evolution,  but  simply  to  suggest 
that  the  natural  appearance  of  fortuitousness  which 
at  first  the  theory  makes  becomes  more  doubtful  when 
we  examine  the  entire  situation,  and  therefore  that 
this  ought  not  to  be  given  too  much  weight  as  against 
the  positive  reasons  for  believing  that  the  develop- 
ing process  of  the  world  reveals  a  meaning  and  a 
purpose.  There  is,  however,  another  side  from  which 
the  idea  of  purpose  has  been  attacked,  and  this  is 
historically  a  much  older,  though  it  is  still  a  widely 
prevalent,  form  of  the  difficulty.  No  one  has  ever 
put  this  with  more  rigor  of  logic  and  force  of  con- 
viction than  Spinoza.  The  objection  has  two  main 
roots.  The  more  fundamental  of  these  is  the  de- 
mand on  the  part  of  science,  and  the  quite  legitimate 
demand,  that  it  be  not  interfered  with  in  its  attempts 
at  explanation  by  scientifically  irrelevant  and  ar- 


Il6        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

bitrary  motives.  Science  is  trying  to  reduce  the 
sequences  among  facts  to  terms  of  natural  law,  and 
it  cannot  view  calmly  the  possible  intrusion  at  any 
moment  into  its  orderly  and  well-articulated  world 
of  a  miraculous  interruption  and  source  of  confu- 
sion, incapable  of  being  reduced  to  the  formulae  which 
its  ideal  demands  should  be  all-embracing.  This 
repugnance  is,  to  repeat,  justified,  and  if  the  conse- 
quences which  it  deprecates  were  really  bound  up 
with  the  teleological  conception,  it  would  constitute 
an  objection  whose  force  it  would  be  very  hard  indeed 
to  break.  That  it  at  all  necessarily  applies,  however, 
to  the  modem  form  of  the  belief,  is  very  far  from 
being  evident ;  to  this  point  I  shall  return  presently. 

But  now,  while  the  real  force  of  the  hostility  to 
purpose  goes  back  thus  to  an  objection  which  is 
hypothetical  merely,  — if  purpose  contradicts  natural 
law,  it  cannot  be  maintained,  —  the  form  which  the 
opposition  is  apt  to  take  on  the  surface  has  been 
another  and  a  much  less  convincing  one.  Roughly 
the  objection  is  founded  upon  the  charge,  in  particu- 
lar, that  purpose  is  a  purely  human  category,  the  out- 
come of  a  bias  which  human  needs  and  desires  lend 
to  our  thought,  and  that  consequently  it  has  no  right 
to  be  regarded  as  applying  to  the  real,  the  extra- 
human  world. 

But  the  force  of  this  claim  has  already  been  met 
by  the  position  taken  in  a  preceding  chapter.  For 
the  defect,  if  defect  it  be,  that  comes  from  having  a 
basis  in  a  human  need,  is  by  no  means  confined  to 


THE  ARGUMENT   FOR  PURPOSE  II 7 

the  concept  of  teleology.  It  is  equally  true  of  the 
more  mechanical  concepts  that  are  included  under 
the  head  of  natural  law.  The  term  "explanation'' 
is  in  itself  essentially  teleological  in  meaning,  and  so 
not  only  are  we  unable  to  dispense  with  teleology 
in  the  world,  but  it  must  take  its  place  as  the  very 
most  fundamental  category.  Mechanism  is  itself  an 
example  of  teleology.  In  other  words,  we  always 
have  some  end  in  view  when  we  set  out  to  explain 
a  thing.  Why  otherwise  should  we  go  to  the  trouble 
of  explaining?  We  must  somehow  be  dissatisfied; 
and  there  is  no  such  thing  as  satisfaction  or  dissatis- 
faction except  as  a  need  or  an  end  is  or  is  not  being 
met.  It  is  the  demands  of  our  nature,  our  intellec- 
tual demands  at  the  very  least,  which  underlie  and 
give  effect  to  every  advance  in  knowledge.  We  can- 
not possibly  get  away  from  ourselves  and  our  con- 
stitution as  human  beings.  There  is  a  necessary 
anthropomorphism  in  every  least  detail  of  the  think- 
ing experience.  Man,  as  Emerson  says,  can  paint 
or  make  or  think  nothing  but  man.  In  scientific 
materialism  or  agnosticism,  quite  as  truly  as  in  a 
naive  theology,  we  are  imposing  our  own  human 
needs  upon  nature,  rather  than  merely  finding  what 
is  there,  independent  of  any  reference  to  ourselves 
and  this  nature  of  ours.  It  may  indeed  be  that  our 
private  and  individual  needs  ought  to  be  eliminated. 
But  to  get  away  from  such  methods  of  interpretation 
as  are  essentially  and  universally  human  is  a  sheer 
impossibility. 


Il8         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

This  accordingly,  once  more,  is  the  real  state  of  the 
case:  That  order  which  later  we  come  to  know  as 
natural  law  is  in  no  sense  a  given  and  undeniable 
fact.  We  never  should  have  recognized  law  had 
not  the  need  of  law  been  insistently  present  in  our 
lives.  And  even  now,  if  it  were  not  for  our  robust 
faith  that  law  must  everywhere  rule  the  world,  — 
a  faith  which  goes  far  beyond  empirical  demon- 
stration and  has  its  root  in  the  necessities  of  practical 
self-preservation,  —  the  whole  laborious  edifice  of 
science  would  crumble  to  pieces.  Accordingly  the 
appeal  to  a  prejudice  against  merely  human  modes 
of  interpretation  furnishes  in  itself  no  valid  reason 
why  the  teleological  hypothesis  should  be  rejected, 
at  the  same  time  that  the  scientific  is  regarded  as 
true.  We  are  thrown  back  therefore  upon  the  other 
and  more  fundamental  objection :  purpose  is  to  be 
denied,  not  because  it  is  a  human  way  of  thinking, 
but  because  it  contradicts  the  more  firmly  estab- 
lished and  better-verified  hypothesis  of  mechanism 
and  natural  law. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  in  a  general  way  that  when 
the  old  idea  of  purpose  has  been  transformed,  this  con- 
tradiction no  longer  exists  as  a  necessity  of  thought. 
When  purpose  is  conceived  as  breaking  in  upon  the 
course  of  natural  events  from  the  outside  to  give  it 
a  new  and  incalculable  twist,  the  demands  of  science 
are  clearly  sacrificed.  But  if  intelligence  directs  the 
process  from  start  to  finish,  and  is  identified  with  the 
development  as  a  whole,  then  the  case  stands  quite 


THE  ARGUMENT  FOR  PURPOSE  119 

otherwise.  Teleology  and  mechanism  are  no 
longer  competing  theories,  but  rather  different 
points  of  view,  both  equally  valid,  though  one  is 
more  ultimate  than  the  other.  They  stand  for  the 
difference  between  the  meaning  of  a  process,  and 
the  steps  by  which  this  meaning  is  worked  out. 
And  unless  it  is  impossible  that  a  purpose  should 
be  accomplished  in  an  orderly  and  systematic 
way,  a  way  which  shows  definite  uniformities  and 
can  be  summed  up  and  stated  as  a  law,  any  in- 
herent opposition  between  the  two  concepts  does 
not  exist. 

As  an  abstract  solution  of  the  difficulty  this  seems 
fairly  evident.  But  there  are  certain  features  of  the 
situation  which  need  clearing  up  before  we  can  con- 
sider that  we  have  a  finished  theory.  And  in  the 
first  place,  what  more  precisely  are  we  to  understand 
is  the  relation  in  which  intelligence  stands  to  the  pro- 
cess of  growth  that  constitutes  the  universe  ?  If  we 
use  the  term  "  God,"  what  is  the  connection  between 
God  and  the  changing  world  ?  Does  he  exist  beyond 
its  limits  and  have  only  an  external  relationship  to 
it?  Or  is  intelligence  somehow  immanent  in  the 
universe  of  matter  itself?  If  the  last  alternative  is 
true,  how  are  we  to  understand  this  "somehow"? 
For  the  inherence  of  intelligence  in  a  world  of  matter 
needs  some  further  explanation.  And  if  we  take 
the  other  side,  then  the  creation  outright  of  a  new 
world  of  reality,  or  the  handling  of  a  foreign  matter 
that  always  has  existed,  equally  calls  for  interpreta- 


120        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

tion.  Accordingly  the  religious  hypothesis  will  need 
to  receive  a  more  exact  formulation  in  connection 
with  an  answer  to  this  question :  What  is  the  relation 
between  God  and  the  world  of  material  things  ? 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE 

THE  traditional  argument  for  theism  starts  from 
an  assumed  separation  between  God  and  the  world. 
The  world  of  matter  exists,  and  exists  essentially  as 
we  know  it.  But  beyond  this  there  lies  also  a  super- 
sensible, an  immaterial  being.  We  have  no  imme- 
diate knowledge  of  this  being.  We  only  infer  his 
existence  from  certain  facts  which  admittedly  are 
known.  We  know  directly  the  world  of  matter. 
This  exists  palpably  and  beyond  question.  But 
various  considerations  make  it  impossible  to  stop 
with  this  as  the  only  reality.  First,  there  is  the  al- 
leged impossibility  that  any  true  and  ultimate  cause 
can  be  found  in  the  physical  world.  The  search  for 
a  first  cause  leads  us  beyond  matter  to  the  creator, 
absolute  and  infinite,  on  whom  material  facts  must 
depend.  And  then  there  is  the  further  point  which 
already  has  come  before  us  in  the  form  of  the  argu- 
ment from  design:  certain  aspects  of  the  material 
world  show  too  plainly  their  relation  to  an  intelligent 
purpose  to  be  reduced  to  mere  unmeaning  law  and 
mechanism.  Accordingly  there  must  exist  behind 
the  world  of  matter  an  intelligent  creator  and  de- 
signer, vastly  powerful  if  not  omnipotent,  to  whose 
wisdom  and  power  natural  events  are  due  —  at 

121 


122         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

least  those  events  which  lie  beyond  the  reach  of 
mechanism  to  explain. 

I  have  already  indicated  that  there  is  an  interpre- 
tation of  this  last  argument  at  any  rate  which  seems 
to  me  still  to  have  a  great  deal  of  force.  Never- 
theless I  think  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  its  tra- 
ditional form  the  whole  theistic  position  starts  out 
with  presuppositions  which  put  it  at  a  certain  real 
disadvantage,  especially  in  so  far  as  it  confines  itself 
to  the  physical  side  of  the  universe.  Here  are  cer- 
tain facts  to  be  accounted  for.  Now  there  is,  it  may 
be  said,  one  basis  of  explanation  which  is  admitted 
by  all  to  be  real  so  far  as  it  goes.  The  world  of  mat- 
ter exists.  The  laws  of  its  workings  are  confessedly 
equal  to  at  least  a  part  of  the  task  in  question.  Let 
us  grant  that  there  are  flaws  in  the  explanation. 
Questions  arise  to  which  the  answer  that  science  can 
at  present  give  are  not  wholly  satisfying.  And  yet 
when  we  think  how  great  is  that  leap  into  the  un- 
known which  the  argument  for  God  requires,  may 
we  not  hesitate  before  leaving  apparently  solid  ground 
for  what  at  best  has  only  a  speculative  justification  ? 
Can  we  really  be  sure  of  the  necessity  for  taking  so 
great  a  step  when  the  facts  with  which  we  are  dealing 
are  on  so  vast  a  scale  ?  Is  it  so  certain  after  all  that 
matter,  whose  marvellous  properties  we  are  only  be- 
ginning to  realize,  may  not  be  competent  to  perform 
the  task  for  which  we  have  been  demanding  a  God  ? 
God  is  an  hypothesis,  matter  an  actuality.  God  we 
can  at  best  only  infer,  matter  we  can  directly  know. 


THE   RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE  123 

We  have  no  right,  then,  to  call  in  a  new  and  un- 
known cause  unless  the  explanation  that  already  lies 
within  our  reach  breaks  down  decisively.  And  then, 
too,  there  are  the  positive  difficulties  which  surround 
any  attempt  to  understand  the  relation  of  two 
realities  so  totally  different  in  kind  as  by  definition 
God  and  matter  are,  whether  it  be  in  terms  of  crea- 
tion, or  of  interaction. 

But  now  there  is  another  path  which  lies  open  to 
the  theist,  and  which,  were  it  to  prove  feasible,  would 
give  him  a  certain  advantage  of  position.  Suppose 
we  were  to  deny  the  postulate  which  underlies  the 
objection  that  has  just  been  made  —  the  self-evident 
reality  of  matter  and  material  things.  We  may  agree 
that  experience  reveals  a  reality  to  us  —  the  reality 
which  naive  thought  knows  as  the  external  world. 
But  in  the  place  of  attempting  to  prove  God's  exist- 
ence as  a  separate  being  necessary  to  create  and 
order  this  given  material  world,  we  might  adopt  a 
different  course.  Instead  of  passing  from  a  sensible 
reality  to  another  and  supersensible  one,  we  might 
go  to  work  rather  to  criticise  the  notion  of  this  very 
reality  which  we  already  suppose  ourselves  to  have. 
The  assumption,  so  the  argument  would  run,  that 
in  what  is  called  matter  we  have  a  perfectly  clear 
and  unambiguous  conception  is  capable  of  being 
doubted.  On  the  contrary,  the  apparently  self- 
evident  notion  of  matter  begins  to  crumble  under 
scrutiny.  Instead  of  our  having  an  undoubted 
reality  to  start  upon,  while  the  reality  of  God  is  de- 


124        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

rivative  and  inferential,  we  find  that  the  idea  of 
matter  is  itself  uncertain  and  disputable.  A  reality 
there  doubtless  is.  But  when  we  call  this  reality 
material,  we  are  simply  resting  satisfied  with  our 
first  naive  impressions.  These  impressions,  however, 
taken  as  ultimate  truth  will  not  stand  criticism.  The 
more  we  examine  them,  the  less  capable  do  we  find 
the  material  categories  of  representing  a  final  state- 
ment of  the  real  world.  And  in  the  end  we  might 
discover  that  the  only  way  hi  which  we  can  really 
think  this  world,  without  involving  ourselves  in  ob- 
scurity and  self-contradiction,  is  to  interpret  it  in 
terms  of  that  other  sort  of  reality  which  we  know 
as  consciousness.  The  world  of  matter  transforms 
itself  in  our  hands  in  the  process  of  our  attempt  to 
make  it  thinkable.  The  question  is  no  longer 
whether  a  given  reality  requires  a  separate  and  hy- 
pothetical reality  to  explain  it.  It  is  rather  the 
question  about  the  true  understanding  of  the  one 
reality  which  alone  we  know,  but  which  refuses  to 
admit  of  a  final  interpretation  in  the  terms  we  first 
apply  to  it.  God  is  still  an  hypothesis,  to  be  sure. 
But  he  is  not  an  hypothesis  called  in  to  explain  that 
for  which  we  already  have  a  partially  sufficient  cause 
in  matter.  Matter  itself  and  the  laws  of  matter  are 
self -contradictory,  until  we  have  reconstructed  them 
in  terms  of  conscious  life.  There  would  be  nothing 
arbitrary  in  this.  It  would  be  a  perfectly  justifiable 
use  of  hypothesis.  We  have  something  which  we 
are  trying  to  render  consistent  for  thought,  and  in- 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     125 

telligible.  This  is  the  world  which  experience  re- 
veals to  us  —  a  world  which  materialist  and  theist 
alike  believe  exists.  If  the  attempt  to  think  this  as 
material  breaks  down,  we  have  a  perfect  right  to  call 
in  some  other  hypothesis.  This  is  just  what  science 
itself  is  constantly  doing.  Science  never  leaves  the 
world  as  naive  experience  finds  it.  It  reconstructs 
and  transfigures  until  the  reality  is  quite  unrecog- 
nizable to  the  lay  mind.  The  only  caution  which 
it  is  necessary  to  observe  is  this,  that  the  logical  re- 
quirements of  a  good  hypothesis  should  not  be  dis- 
regarded. 

There  are  thus  two  steps  in  the  argument  that  has 
just  been  sketched.  It  is  necessary  to  show,  in  the 
first  place,  that  the  concept  of  matter  as  a  self -existent 
reality  is  not  ultimately  intelligible,  and  so  that  the 
ordinary  conception  of  the  external  world  must  in 
some  way  be  transformed.  And  in  the  second  place, 
it  must  be  shown  that  the  religious  hypothesis  —  the 
interpretation  of  the  world,  that  is,  as  a  conscious  ex- 
perience or  personality — is,  all  things  considered,  the 
most  reasonable  one,  and  meets  best  the  conditions  of 
the  problem.  Upon  the  first  step  it  is  not  necessary  to 
dwell  very  long.  The  novice  in  philosophy  no  doubt 
finds  it  very  difficult  at  the  start  to  get  the  point  of  view 
from  which  the  seemingly  solid  fabric  of  the  outer 
world  as  we  know  it  through  the  senses  loses  its  sub- 
stantial existence.  But  to  one  who  has  any  knowl- 
edge of  the  results  of  philosophical  thought,  the  Berke- 
leyan  denial  of  the  reality  of  matter  as  something 


126        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

which  exists,  as  we  know  it,  independent  of  any  con- 
sciousness whatever,  has  long  been  a  commonplace. 
Such  a  result  is  not  confined  to  the  mere  metaphy- 
sician. It  is  accepted,  not  to  say  insisted  upon,  by 
nearly  every  scientist  of  recent  times  who  has  any 
pretensions  to  be  called  a  philosopher.  I  shall  there- 
fore reproduce  the  argument  here  only  very  briefly. 

When  with  the  eyes  of  sober  and  unreflective  com- 
mon sense  we  look  out  on  the  world  about  us,  it  never 
strikes  us  that  there  is  any  lurking  mystery  which  the 
senses  may  not  penetrate.  There  stands  the  universe 
of  things,  green  and  white  and  red,  round  and  square, 
rough  and  smooth,  the  living  type  of  all  that  is  real 
and  solid.  We  close  our  eyes  and  look  again,  and 
there  has  been  no  change.  We  do  not  ask  ourselves 
why  it  should  be  standing  thus ;  why  should  it  not  ? 
Long  before  the  human  race  was  thought  of  all  these 
things  existed.  If  every  creature  that  draws  breath 
suddenly  were  blotted  out,  the  brooks  still  would 
murmur  as  before,  the  sunlight  glisten,  the  trees 
put  forth  green  leaves. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  trace  the  process  by 
which  our  naive  confidence  that  things  exist  just 
as  we  sense  them  gradually  becomes  modified,  until 
at  last  in  the  common  scientific  atomism  we  have 
the  great  mass  of  sense  qualities  rejected  outright 
as  merely  subjective,  and  only  the  merest  remnant, 
notably  extension  and  impenetrability,  still  retained 
as  actually  and  objectively  existing.  The  point 
which  I  shall  consider  here  is  more  general  in  its 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     127 

application.  It  depends  upon  the  self-evident  fact 
that  all  our  knowledge  of  things  is  primarily  our 
knowledge,  and  is  reducible  ultimately  to  the  data  of 
our  sense  experience.  We  say  that  out  in  space  there 
are  objects  existing,  and  that  we  see  them  and 
know  them.  But  this  seeing,  this  knowing,  is  a 
mental  act,  and  by  no  possibility  can  there  be  any 
perception  or  knowledge  which  is  not  a  mental 
act.  Now  matter  by  definition  is  something  that 
exists  in  a  definite  place  outside  us  and  distinct  from 
our  private  experiencing.  It  cannot  therefore  be 
taken  up  from  its  solid  base  and  transported  into  the 
mind.  We  believe  that  it  exists  out  there  where  we 
seem  to  see  it.  But  all  the  data  for  this  belief  are 
nevertheless  mental.  The  things  exist  perhaps. 
But  for  us  they  exist  not  in  themselves,  but  only  as 
they  are  reproduced  or  somehow  issue  in  mental 
terms.  There  is  literally  no  quality  which  we  attrib- 
ute to  matter  —  color,  form,  hardness,  elasticity  — 
which  is  not  based  directly  upon  sensational  experi- 
ences, and  which  cannot,  when  looked  at  from  an- 
other standpoint,  be  put  in  terms  of  these.  If,  that 
is  to  say,  matter  is  regarded  as  something  distinct 
from  consciousness,  we  yet  have  to  admit  that  it  is 
only  through  the  medium  of  consciousness  that  we 
can  describe  it.  Every  quality  which  we  ascribe  to 
matter  is,  it  would  seem,  after  all  only  the  same 
thing  that  we  otherwise  know  as  a  sensation.  So 
that  when  we  set  aside  this  content  nothing  what- 
ever is  left.  Consciousness  is  for  us  the  ultimate. 


128        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF   THE   WORLD 

The  force  of  this  position  is  generally  admitted 
in  the  case  of  the  secondary  qualities  of  matter - 
color,  sound,  heat,  smell,  and  the  like.  These,  it  is 
agreed,  are  really  subjective  affections  of  our  own. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  we  can  stop  with  them ; 
the  same  arguments  seem  to  apply  equally  well 
to  the  so-called  primary  qualities,  which  are  popu- 
larly supposed  to  belong  to  matter  in  itself.  These 
also  certainly  are  made  known  to  us  through  sense 
perception.  Why  then  should  we  suppose  that  they 
have  any  existence  except  as  they  are  sensibly  per- 
ceived, any  more  than  the  color  or  fragrance  of  the 
rose  exists  when  no  one  is  there  to  enjoy  it  ?  Indeed, 
what  possible  conception  can  we  form  of  a  sense  qual- 
ity which  has  an  existence  when  it  is  not  perceived  ? 
If  we  hold  to  the  fact  that  all  our  supposed  knowledge 
of  the  qualities  of  matter  comes  to  us  through  sen- 
sation, can  we  still  retain  the  belief  that  these  sense 
qualities  give  us  information  about  a  material  some- 
thing beyond  themselves,  unless  we  admit  the  appar- 
ent contradiction  that  a  sensation  may  resemble  that 
of  which  an  essential  determination  is  that  it  differs 
altogether  from  a  sensation?  "What,  when  we 
consider  it  candidly,"  to  quote  Mr.  Balfour,  "can 
we  possibly  make  of  a  macrocosm  furnished  with 
material  objects  whose  qualities  exactly  resemble 
impressions  and  ideas,  with  the  embarrassing  ex- 
ception that  they  are  neither  transient  nor  mental?" 
For  matter  is  denned  as  that  which  is  absolutely 
out  of  all  relation  to  consciousness,  which  is  entirely 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     I2Q 

unconscious.  Now  not  one  of  the  qualities  of  a  sen- 
sation can  be  separated  from  the  fact  of  its  being 
thus  a  sensation,  a  form  of  consciousness.  Conscious- 
ness is  implicated  in  every  possible  aspect  of  a  con- 
scious fact;  it  is  conscious  through  and  through. 
And  if  this  fundamental  characteristic  is  denied, 
everything  whatsoever  goes  along  with  it.  There  is 
no  basis  at  all  left  on  which  to  found  a  correspondence 
or  representation  of  any  kind.  Matter  exists,  then, 
only  in  terms  of  conscious  experience.  The  con- 
scious threads  woven  into  it  are  essential  to  its  being. 
And  were  we  to  attempt  to  withdraw  them,  the  whole 
world  would  vanish  like  a  bubble. 

The  Berkeleyan  form  of  the  idealistic  argument 
is  the  one  which  has  been  most  generally  familiar. 
There  is,  however,  another  way  in  which  essentially 
the  same  thing  may  be  put,  and  which  perhaps  comes 
closer  to  the  actual  scientific  procedure.  For  in 
spite  of  its  historical  connection  with  sensationalism, 
modern  science  is  in  reality  at  almost  the  opposite 
pole  from  a  reduction  of  the  world  to  sensations. 
It  might  rather  be  claimed  that  science  has  no  ap- 
parent place  left  for  sensations  at  all.  The  world  of 
science  is  an  ideal  world.  Its  atoms,  its  ether,  are 
things  that  no  man's  eye  has  seen  or  can  see.  They 
are  demands  of  logic,  not  complexes  of  sensations. 
Even  more  obviously  are  the  laws  of  science  not  things 
of  sense.  Laws,  say  of  mechanics  or  of  chemistry, 
with  their  complex  mathematical  formulae,  are  in 
the  highest  possible  degree  abstract  and  ideal. 


130         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF   THE    WORLD 

Now  these  statements,  if  they  are  examined,  really 
involve  the  whole  point  at  issue.  The  scientist's 
conception  of  the  world  is  confessed  by  him  to  be,  not 
in  terms  of  matter,  but  in  terms  of  thought  —  a 
conscious  fact.  Law  is  the  goal  of  science ;  and  law 
is  the  product  of  thought,  of  reason.  The  whole 
procedure  of  science  is  an  attempt  to  meet  the  de- 
mands of  thought  and  the  laws  of  thinking.  A 
scientific  hypothesis  is  primarily  a  device  to  satisfy 
certain  requirements  —  ease,  comprehensiveness,  and 
the  like  —  in  the  mental  grasping  and  manipulation 
of  the  data  of  experience,  for  the  sake  of  better  prac- 
tical control.  Typically  it  bases  itself  on  mathe- 
matics, and  mathematics  is  fundamentally  an  intel- 
lectual discipline.  The  consistent  materialist  who 
makes  mathematics  the  basis  of  his  science  is  thus 
compelled  to  hold  that  the  very  thing  which  is  most 
characteristic  of  the  scientific  attitude  is  unreal, 
lacking  in  objective  validity,  the  work  merely  of 
the  mind.  Philosophical  scientists  are  often  nowa- 
days ready  to  admit  this,  and  to  declare  frankly  that 
scientific  laws  are  no  account  of  reality,  but  arbi- 
trary devices  for  introducing  order  into  the  confusion 
of  our  sense  experience,  with  no  validity  beyond  this 
purely  human  and  practical  one.  Whatever  the 
satisfactoriness  of  this  position  as  a  whole,  the  one 
point  with  which  we  are  here  concerned  is  plain. 
The  concepts  of  science  are  not  facts  found  ready- 
made  in  nature.  They  are  superimposed  upon  it. 
And  the  grounds  of  their  acceptance  are  the  demands 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     131 

of  thinking.  They  are  thoughts,  not  unconscious 
matter.  And  if  therefore  they  are  regarded  as  belong- 
ing to  the  real  world,  this  world  can  no  longer  be  put 
ultimately  in  material  terms. 

Such  then  is  the  result  to  which  philosophy  and 
science  alike  have  very  generally  come.  The  stuff 
of  the  material  world,  and  that  which  at  least  furnishes 
the  starting-point  of  science,  is  revealed  to  us  only  in 
sense  perception,  and  therefore  is  reducible  in  its 
statement  ultimately  to  facts  only  of  a  sensational 
order.  The  peculiar  and  more  fundamental  real- 
ity of  the  scientist  —  the  reality  of  law  —  is  again  a 
product  only  statable  in  terms  of  the  intellectual  con- 
sciousness ;  it  is  clearly  and  confessedly  the  product 
of  thought.  On  this  basis  then  we  are  ready  for  the 
second  step  in  the  theistic  argument. 
V  And  the  main  point  is  a  simple  one.  Here  is  a 
reality  which  we  have  agreed  exists.  We  might  of 
course  go  back  on  this  assumption,  and  hold  that 
the  world  is  entirely  identical  with  the  conscious 
experience  in  which  I  suppose  myself  to  know  it. 
I  have  already  given  my  reasons  for  rejecting  this 
position,  and  I  shall  continue  therefore  to  take  for 
granted  that  the  reality  to  which  we  have  reference 
in  what  we  term  the  outer  world  exists  beyond  my 
private  self,  and  beyond  any  human,  psychological, 
experience.  But  it  turns  out  that  this  reality  is 
incapable  of  being  thought  ultimately  in  terms  of 
matter,  if  we  define  matter  as  something  entirely  un- 
like mind  and  consciousness.  So  far  as  it  makes  any 


132         RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

claim  to  be  known  it  is  known  in  conscious  terms  — 
terms  of  thought  and  sensation,  or  of  conscious  ex- 
perience. But  why  not  suppose,  then,  that  the  terms 
in  which  reality  is  known  really  represent  in  some 
true  sense  the  nature  of  that  which  is  known  ?  There 
is  one,  and  apparently  only  one,  condition  on  which 
this  would  be  conceivable.  Why  not  suppose  that 
knowledge  is  possible  for  us  just  because  we  are  akin 
to  the  world  we  know,  and  that  the  world  can  get 
itself  reproduced  hi  our  consciousness  because  this 
reproduction  is  in  its  essential  being  similar  to  that 
for  which  it  stands  ?  We  are  able  to  reproduce  in  our 
knowledge  with  some  degree  of  adequateness  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  our  fellows  for  this  reason, 
that  both  the  knowledge  and  the  thing  it  knows  have 
as  conscious  facts  a  common  nature.  Why  may  not 
the  same  be  true  of  our  knowledge  of  the  outer  world  ? 
If  the  world  is  intelligible — and  science  assumes 
this  —  must  we  not  hold  that  it  is  itself  the  expres- 
sion of  intelligence?  "That  which  requires  reason 
and  thought  to  understand  must  itself  be  thought 
and  reason."  The  fact  that  our  knowledge  is  in  the 
form  of  consciousness  makes  it  impossible  to  suppose 
it  truly  represents  outer  reality  so  long  as  we  hold  to 
the  prejudice  that  this  reality  must  of  necessity  be  an 
unconscious  and  unintelligent  something.  But  in- 
stead of  saying  :  Knowledge  is  a  fact  of  consciousness, 
and  therefore  cannot  truly  stand  for  anything  be- 
yond our  conscious  experience ;  why  not  rather  say : 
Knowledge  is  valid  of  reality,  and  therefore  reality 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     133 

must  itself  be  such  that  knowledge  can  reproduce  it  ? 
The  qualities  of  things  have  been  reduced  to  sen- 
sational qualities,  and  sensations  cannot  exist  ob- 
jectively in  a  world  of  unthinking  matter.  But 
sensations  can  be  supposed  to  exist  independently  in 
another  experience  objective  to  our  own.  Once  more, 
then,  why  may  we  not  say  that  the  great  reality  which 
we  know  as  the  material  universe,  the  reality  on 
which  our  whole  being  depends,  from  which  flow 
the  issues  of  life  and  death,  is  like  in  essence  to  our- 
selves who  stand  in  this  intimate  relation  to  it,  is  a 
reality  of  conscious  spirit,  in  religious  language  is 
God?  How  else  again  can  we  understand  the  re- 
lationship of  knowledge  —  the  relationship  between 
the  perception  and  the  object  which  we  commonly 
think  that  it  represents  —  unless  the  object  also 
forms  part  of  some  similar  conscious  experience? 
Thus  God  would  not  be  unknown.  He  does  not  lie 
in  a  realm  beyond  that  with  which  our  experience 
brings  us  in  contact.  This  very  world  which  we 
suppose  we  know  we  cannot  really  understand,  until 
we  have  transformed  it  so  that  it  becomes  no  longer 
dead  matter,  but  living  spirit. 

There  is  a  somewhat  different  way  in  which  the 
argument  might  be  put.  We  should  not  forget, 
though  it  often  is  forgotten,  that  what  we  call  the 
external  world  is  not  the  whole  of  reality.  Any 
final  explanation,  therefore,  must  not  be  prejudicial  to 
the  outlying  facts,  but  must  find  somewhere  a  place 
for  them.  Now  the  reality  which  we  know  outside 


134        RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

what  we  call  the  material  universe  is  the  reality  of 
conscious  beings.  In  our  own  immediate  conscious 
lives  we  come  into  contact  with  a  portion  of  the  uni- 
verse which  is  as  certain  to  us  as  anything  can  possi- 
bly be.  The  situation  is  accordingly  this :  We  have  a 
part  of  the  universe  that  is  known,  and  we  are  trying 
to  get  a  satisfactory  conception  of  that  other  portion 
which  lies  beyond.  Other  things  being  equal,  it  is 
easier  to  regard  the  universe  as  all  of  a  piece,  than  to 
think  of  it  as  split  into  two  divisions,  one  essentially 
different  in  nature  from  the  other.  If  therefore  the 
nature  of  one  section  is  known  to  us,  there  is  nothing 
arbitrary  in  the  supposition  that  this  will  furnish 
us  the  clew  for  understanding  the  whole.  Or  it  can 
be  put  in  still  another  way.  If  consciousness  exists 
now,  it  may  be  argued  that  it  must  somehow  always 
have  existed.  It  is  difficult  to  think  of  an  absolutely 
new  kind  of  reality  as  suddenly  appearing.  Even 
prior  to  the  existence  of  organic  life  there  must  have 
been  some  positive  grounds  for  the  possibility  of 
consciousness.  And  since  the  derivation  of  con- 
sciousness from  that  which  is  wholly  unconscious 
is  not  easy  to  distinguish  from  the  appearance  of 
a  new  kind  of  reality,  again  the  natural  hypothesis 
is  to  interpret  in  conscious  terms  existence  as  it  was 
originally,  in  order  to  account  for  these  facts  of  exist- 
ence which  we  know  have  come  to  be. 

The  somewhat  startling  nature  of  this  result - 
for  it  is  likely  to  appear  startling  to  the  novice  in 
philosophy — should  not  obscure  the  essentially  sim- 


THE   RELATION   OF   GOD  AND   NATURE  135 

pie  character  of  the  process  by  which  it  is  reached. 
If  we  are  to  make  any  effort  at  all  to  understand  the 
true  nature  of  the  external  world,  then  it  may  be 
maintained  that  from  the  standpoint  of  logic  nothing 
else  meets  as  well  the  requirements  of  a  general  and 
preliminary  hypothesis.  Our  first  naive  explana- 
tion of  the  world  has  proved  insufficient,  and  we  have 
therefore  on  our  hands  a  problem  to  be  met.  We 
know  that  conscious  beings  really  exist,  and  we 
know,  at  least  in  a  measure,  what  consciousness  is. 
There  is  no  other  reality  that  we  know  so  well. 
There  is  no  other  reality  that  we  know  at  all,  indeed, 
if  the  reality  of  matter  fails  us.  It  affords  there- 
fore really  the  only  type  of  hypothesis  positive  in  its 
nature  that  is  available.  It  would,  once  more,  be 
quite  possible  at  this  stage  to  drop  proceedings  al- 
together. One  might  well  be  deterred  by  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  problem,  and  be  content  to  lay  it  aside 
and  turn  to  other  more  immediately  practical  mat- 
ters ;  and  if  he  fails  to  find  within  himself  the  insist- 
ent motive  for  demanding  a  solution,  this  is  doubtless 
what  he  will  do.  But  to  give  things  up  is,  of  course, 
to  abandon  the  realm  of  philosophy  altogether,  and 
to  leave  one's  results  the  expression  of  simple  preju- 
dice or  temperament.  But  now  if,  instead  of  saying 
that  he  is  unable  to  form  any  opinion  at  all  about  the 
real  nature  of  the  world,  one  should  declare  that 
nature  in  all  likelihood  to  be  quite  definitely  of  an 
unknown  sort,  such  an  one  is  still  treading  the  paths 
of  speculation.  He  is  making  a  choice  between  two 


136         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

alternatives,  and  may  therefore  fairly  be  called  upon 
to  give  reasons  for  his  choice.  And  my  only  point 
is  that  the  hypothesis  of  the  theist  is  logically  superior, 
taken  simply  by  itself.  To  pass  by  the  claims  of 
consciousness  as  a  means  of  interpretation,  so  long  as 
the  insufficiency  of  consciousness  has  not  been  shown, 
is  from  the  logical  standpoint  unjustified.  It  is  an 
appeal  from  the  known  to  the  unknown  as  a  source 
of  explanation  —  the  very  thing  which  science  depre- 
cates ;  or  else  it  is,  once  more,  simply  a  faint-hearted 
abandonment  of  the  problem.  Of  course  it  is  en- 
tirely possible  that  the  hypothesis  may  not  work 
out  well,  and  if  it  cannot  be  justified  this  abstract 
advantage  will  not  be  enough  to  save  it.  I  am  simply 
concerned  to  maintain  that  there  is  no  initial  unlike- 
lihood in  the  way  of  its  acceptance  as  a  sober  and 
perfectly  natural  hypothesis,  but  that  on  the  contrary 
it  has  the  first  claim  upon  our  attention.  We  have 
the  logical  right  to  demand,  before  the  hypothesis 
is  rejected  in  favor  of  the  unknown,  a  careful  and 
unprejudiced  hearing  for  it,  and  a  recognition  that, 
instead  of  its  being  arbitrary  and  far-fetched,  there 
is  a  general  presumption  in  its  favor. 

I  shall  have  accordingly,  in  what  follows,  to  give 
the  hypothesis  greater  precision  of  statement,  and 
to  indicate  the  answer  which  it  enables  us  to  make 
to  the  more  insistent  problems  which  grow  out  of 
the  attempt  at  a  final  account  of  the  world.  Mean- 
while it  may  be  granted  that  I  have  already  antici- 
pated matters  somewhat,  and  have,  in  the  particular 


THE   RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE  137 

turn  which  has  been  given  to  the  conception,  out- 
stripped the  necessary  implications  of  the  argument. 
That  the  world  of  nature  represents,  however  in- 
adequately and  tentatively,  the  content  of  a  larger 
life  and  conscious  experience  analogous  to  our  own, 
is  the  form  of  the  theory  which  I  have  suggested. 
Strictly,  it  may  be  said,  all  that  at  best  the  argument 
would  justify  us  in  asserting  is  that  in  some  entirely 
indeterminate  way  outer  reality  may  be  interpreted 
in  terms  of  consciousness.  And  there  are  several  pos- 
sible constructions  along  the  lines  of  such  an  indefi- 
nite hypothesis,  other  than  the  particular  one  which 
is  here  preferred.  This  undoubtedly  is  the  case, 
and  I  do  not  mean  to  ignore  it.  It  will,  however, 
permit  of  a  clearer  and  more  straightforward  ex- 
position if  I  keep  to  the  special  point  of  view  which 
I  am  attempting  to  establish,  and  try  primarily  to 
show  in  a  positive  way  that  this  is  a  satisfactory  ex- 
planation of  the  facts  of  experience,  instead  of  direct- 
ing too  much  attention  to  the  criticism  of  competing 
theories.  Incidentally  I  shall,  of  course,  have  occa- 
sion to  consider  such  points  in  connection  with  these 
other  hypotheses  as  seem  to  me  most  important. 
And  meanwhile  there  is  the  general  and  preliminary 
justification  to  which  I  have  already  adverted :  it 
is  not  merely  a  private  preference,  but  it  also  is  the 
one  which  is  dictated  most  obviously  by  the  historical 
religious  experience.  It  is  not  an  interpretation 
manufactured  for  purely  theoretical  purposes;  it 
connects  itself  with  motives  which  are  suggested  by 


138         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

life  before  they  are  used  by  philosophy.  Once  again, 
this  does  not  dispense  with  the  need  of  rational  jus- 
tification. But  so  far  as  if  KOCS  it  may  be  claimed 
that  it  gives  a  certain  initial  advantage. 

There  is  involved,  too,  another  advantage  for  the 
form  of  the  hypothesis  which  is  here  selected  that 
also  may  be  referred  to  once  more  before  proceed- 
ing. It  enables  us  to  maintain  the  essential  ade- 
quacy of  our  knowledge  to  the  real  facts.  That  men 
have  an  instinctive  prejudice  in  favor  of  believing 
that  their  supposed  knowledge  of  the  natural  history 
of  the  world  represents  in  some  true  sense  what 
really  is  there  and  what  really  has  happened,  can, 
of  course,  not  well  be  denied.  And  the  prejudice  is 
a  continuous  one ;  we  fall  back  upon  it  automatically 
the  moment  we  forget  our  speculations  and  trust  to 
our  natural  bias.  And  at  least  for  the  religious  mind, 
which  would  be  at  a  loss  could  it  discover  no  trace 
whatever  of  a  true  revelation  of  God  in  nature,  the 
demand  for  some  measure  of  resemblance  between 
the  truth  for  us  and  the  truth  for  God  must  seem  a 
well-grounded  one.  Now  on  the  supposition  that 
the  world  exists  as  content  within  a  larger  experience, 
there  is  no  need  to  deny  to  our  knowledge  such  re- 
semblance to  the  reality  on  which  it  stands  in  appar- 
ent dependence  as  experience  may  seem  to  warrant. 
Of  course  this  does  not  mean  that  when  we  know  the 
physical  world  we  know  God  in  anything  like  the 
completeness  of  his  nature,  any  more  than  in  know- 
ing the  sensations  my  neighbor  is  experiencing  I 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     139 

should  know  the  man  himself.  Back  of  these  there 
lies  his  emotional  life,  his  whole  system  of  ideals  and 
ends,  the  unity  of  his  concrete  nature.  But  still, 
in  knowing  these  lesser  facts  my  knowledge  is  good 
so  far  as  it  goes.  So  it  is  possible  to  hold  that  nature 
represents  something  which  is  real  for  God's  ex- 
perience, although  it  is  not  the  whole  truth.  Things 
are  parts  of  this  experience  somewhat  as  the  per- 
ception of  things  enters  into  our  own  conscious  life  to 
form  its  objective  framework  and  material.  They 
constitute  elements  in  it,  as  in  the  poet's  dream  the 
various  images  form  the  stuff  of  his  inspired  vision. 
The  material  for  interpreting  the  meaning  of  this 
life  we  shall  have  to  get  in  the  main,  if  at  all,  in  the 
experience  we  call  ethical  and  social,  in  history  rather 
than  the  physical  sciences.  But  the  validity  of  such 
an  interpretation  would  be  greatly  compromised  were 
we  to  cut  it  loose  wholly  from  its  basis  in  the  natural 
world.  For  our  knowledge  the  world  is  interknit 
in  bonds  of  too  great  intimacy  to  suffer  easily  the 
outright  rejection  of  any  section  of  it;  to  give  up 
the  truth  of  a  part  will  inevitably  tend  to  weaken  and 
confuse  our  hold  upon  the  rest. 

Once  more  it  is  to  be  kept  in  mind  that  we  are  not 
attempting  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  God.  The 
whole  argument  rests  upon  two  postulates,  or  preju- 
dices if  one  chooses  so  to  call  them ;  and  while  these 
can  be  made  to  seem  reasonable  in  the  light  of  a 
developed  experience,  they  can  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  be  submitted  to  no  decisive  test.  The  first  is, 


140        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

that  we  are  encircled  by  a  reality  larger  than  ourselves, 
and  larger  than  all  merely  human  life.  The  second 
is  our  inveterate  bias  toward  supposing  that  growing 
knowledge  is  actually  in  some  degree  advancing 
toward  truth,  that  there  is  a  harmony  between  our 
human  knowing  and  reality.  Whatever  the  broadest 
experience  brings  home  to  us  as  valid,  this  we  find 
ourselves  constrained  also  to  import  into  the  content 
of  that  universe  which  is  the  basis  of  all  validity. 
What  as  philosophers  we  then  go  on  to  do  is  to  clarify 
our  conceptions  to  the  end  that  we  may  get  rid  of 
contradictions,  while  at  the  same  time  we  retain  all 
the  outcome  of  experience  that  is  of  essential  worth. 
And  if  a  certain  conception  enables  us  to  retain  alike 
the  truth  of  nature  and  the  truth  of  our  social  and 
spiritual  experience,  it  has  the  strongest  warrant  that 
any  conception  can  possess. 

In  the  hypothesis,  therefore,  that  in  the  material  ^ 
universe  we  have  a  reality  which  takes  the  form  when  ( 
reinterpreted  —  as  in  some  shape  or  other  it  needs  I 
must  be  reinterpreted  —  of  a  conscious  experience 
akin  to  our  own,  and  that  law  represents  simply 
those  uniformities  of  sequence  that  are  to  be  detected 
within  this  conscious  and  intelligible  whole,  in  itself 
a  reality  of  meaning  and  purpose,  there  is  outlined 
the  foundation  of  a  theoretical  construction  of  the 
world  which  will  serve  to  satisfy  the  religious  de- 
mands and  the  facts  of  experience  which  give  these  J 
demands  their  plausibility,  while  at  the  same  time  it 
gets  rid  of  the  peculiar  difficulties  that  surround  the 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     141 

relationship  of  the  God  of  religion  and  the  object  of 
science  when  these  are  supposed  to  represent  two 
distinct  existences.  Meanwhile,  before  passing  to 
the  further  problems  which  present  themselves  to 
such  a  theory,  I  wish  to  point  out  briefly  that  there 
is  one  question  in  particular  which  has  in  the  past 
caused  a  good  deal  of  trouble  to  philosophers,  to 
which  the  conception  that  has  just  been  outlined 
offers  directly  a  possible  solution.  More  especially 
since  the  days  of  Hume  certain  difficulties  about  the 
notion  of  causality  have  played  a  prominent  rdle  in 
nearly  every  philosophy.  The  particular  difficulty 
which  Hume  himself  brought  to  the  front  was  in  con- 
nection with  the  idea  of  the  causal  bond.  Naturally, 
almost  inevitably  indeed,  when  we  think  of  two 
things  in  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  we  tend  to 
think  that  there  is  an  actual  influence  of  one  upon  the 
other,  that  the  first  somehow  brings  the  second  about, 
makes  it  to  be.  Hume,  on  the  other  hand,  challenges 
us  to  point  out  any  distinct  meaning  that  can  be 
assigned  to  this  notion  of  power,  force,  causal  in- 
fluence —  of  a  bond  that  connects  two  events.  This 
challenge  it  has  been  found  unexpectedly  difficult 
for  the  philosopher  to  meet.  And  in  the  absence  of 
any  assignable  meaning  to  the  term  Hume  is  con- 
strained to  reject  outright  the  whole  conception  as 
groundless,  and  to  reduce  causality  to  a  mere  sub- 
jective expectation  that  things  will  happen  as  they 
have  been  wont  to  happen  in  the  past  —  an  expec- 
tation based  on  habit,  and  of  course  incapable  of 


142         RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

being  philosophically  grounded.  Cause  represents 
simply  a  sequence  of  events  which  has  taken  place  so 
often  that  we  tend  to  look  for  it  again. 

In  more  recent  times  Hume's  position  has  received 
an  apparent  confirmation  from  the  dominant  ten- 
dencies in  science.  For  modern  science  has  prac- 
tically followed  Hume  in  giving  up  the  primitive 
idea  of  force  as  a  valuable  scientific  conception.  It 
has  indeed  added  something  to  Hume's  statement, 
and  by  the  doctrine  of  the  equivalence  of  energy  it 
has  discovered  a  way  of  distinguishing  between  ap- 
parent and  real  causal  sequences,  the  lack  of  which 
constituted  a  difficulty  for  Hume.  But  this  does  not 
mean  any  deviation  from  Hume's  main  point.  The 
equivalence  of  energy  involved  in  two  successive 
stages  of  a  process  is  an  entirely  empirical  fact,  and 
represents  no  real  connection  thrown  over  from  one 
stage  to  another.  It  is  not  a  bond  or  an  efficient 
productive  power,  and  it  does  not  pretend  to  furnish 
any  account  of  why  the  succession  takes  place. 

But  now  this  attitude  on  the  part  of  science  does 
not  settle  the  question  until  we  have  made  it  clear 
that  the  scientific  interest  covers  all  the  aspects  of 
the  problem.  Of  course  the  right  of  science  to  reject 
a  particular  concept  as  useless  for  its  own  special 
purposes  is  undoubted.  And  it  is  not  difficult  to  see 
why  in  this  case  it  has  no  interest  in  retaining  in 
the  causal  concept  the  notion  of  force  or  efficiency. 
Science  aims  to  explain  the  world  by  relating  an 
event  in  certain  definite  ways  with  other  events.  At 


THE   RELATION  OF   GOD  AND  NATURE  143 

best  the  idea  of  force  simply  supplies  us  in  a  gen- 
eral way  with  a  bond  between  things ;  it  does  not  tell 
us  at  all  what  particular  effects  go  with  particular 
causes.  And  it  is  just  this  which  it  is  the  business 
of  science  to  discover.  If  we  take  such  an  event 
as  the  fall  of  a  stone  to  the  earth,  the  popular  ex- 
planation probably  would  be  that  it  is  due  to  attrac- 
tion between  the  earth  and  the  stone.  But  this,  even 
if  it  represents  a  truth,  merely  states  why  anything 
takes  place  at  all.  In  reality  we  have  an  event  of 
a  definite  kind,  and  it  is  the  exact  nature  of  the  event 
in  which  we  are  practically  interested.  The  state- 
ment of  the  existence  of  a  causal  bond,  be  it  ever  so 
true,  stands  for  nothing  peculiar  to  this  particular 
event,  but  is  common  to  all  similar  events,  and  so  it 
can  in  any  case  just  as  well  be  taken  for  granted. 
It  does  not  help  the  scientist  at  all  in  his  special 
work.  It  is  not  simply  two  bodies  that  attract  each 
other,  but  two  bodies  with  a  definite  mass,  and  a 
definite  distance  apart.  The  effect  is  not  simply 
the  fall  of  a  stone,  but  the  stone  falls  with  a  certain 
velocity.  Science  aims  to  state  these  facts  exactly, 
to  describe  in  exact  terms  the  whole  event  in  so  far 
as  this  is  necessary  in  order  to  get  the  law  which  it 
follows  —  of  course  with  an  interest  in  it,  not  as  a 
particular  event,  but  as  a  means  of  reaching  a  for- 
mula that  shall  apply  to  other  events  as  well.  With 
this  aim  the  concept  of  force  is  superfluous.  Science 
does  not  attempt  to  state  why,  but  how,  bodies 
move.  All  that  it  cares  to  know  is  the  law  which 


144        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

events  follow,  the  definite  relationships  which  they 
disclose. 

But  it  is  another  thing  to  say  that  the  scientific 
meaning  of  causality  exhausts  the  full  content  of 
the  conception.  It  should  be  remembered  that  the 
scientific  use  is  a  special  and  to  some  extent  an  arti- 
ficial one.  The  idea  of  cause  enters  into  our  natural 
view  of  the  world  long  before  we  approach  it  scien- 
tifically. And  in  this  natural  view  it  is  not  so  simple 
a  matter  to  get  rid  of  the  element  of  "causal  effi- 
ciency,'' or  of  a  connecting  bond.  When  we  look 
at  the  world  naturally,  things  do  inevitably  seem  to 
affect  one  another.  And  if  the  sceptic  tries  to  prove 
that  all  we  possibly  can  know  is  a  string  of  succes- 
sive events,  and  that  no  scrutiny  can  reveal  any  bond 
of  influence  between  them,  he  has  to  meet  the  ob- 
jection that  at  least  we  talk  of  efficiency,  of  one  thing 
acting  on  another;  and  when  we  attempt  to  ex- 
plain this  as  a  mere  time  succession,  invariably  we 
find  that  we  have  not  exhausted  all  that  we  supposed 
ourselves  to  mean.  The  world  of  our  common  ex- 
perience is  a  unity;  and  one  of  the  main  instruments 
for  effecting  this  unity  is"  the  idea  of  cause.  Pri- 
marily the  use  of  the  causal  concept  is  not  theoret- 
ical, but  practical.  We  search  for  causes  and  effects 
in  order  to  bring  the  world  of  things  into  a  workable 
connection  with  our  active  purposes.  The  causal 
relation  is  first  recognized  between  the  elements  that 
enter  into  our  practical  and  teleological  experience. 
It  is  for  the  reason  that  objects  as  isolated  or  as 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     145 

merely  connected  in  space  and  time  could  have  no 
practical  significance  for  us,  that  the  conception  of 
"things, "  in  a  world  that  is  built  up  out  of  our  practi- 
cal experience  with  things,  takes  the  causal  form  that 
it  does.  A  "  thing,"  considered  solely  by  itself,  might 
be  looked  at  simply  as  a  union  of  certain  qualities  be- 
longing together  in  space.  But  in  reality  this  is  not 
sufficient  to  make  it  a  thing.  It  does  not  thus  exist 
by  itself,  but  as  a  part  of  the  world ;  and  an  essential 
element  of  thinghood  is  that  it  should  play  its  part 
in  this  world.  A  thing  that  did  not  make  itself  felt, 
did  not  produce  effects,  would  be  a  mere  floating 
product  of  imagination.  A  tool  that  did  not  change 
the  shape  of  the  material  it  worked  upon,  a  rope  that 
did  not  hold  anything,  a  stool  that  did  not  support 
any  weight,  could  not  enter  at  all  into  relations  with 
other  things ;  and  a  world  made  up  of  such  isolated 
sense  pictures  would  be  a  mirage,  an  unreal  vision. 
Causality  is  essential.  It  is  the  connection  between 
things  without  which  they  would  not  be  things  in  a 
common  world. 

Now  right  here  is  to  be  found  a  suggestion  —  and 
so  far  as  I  see  it  is  the  only  suggestion  available  — 
of  that  for  which  we  are  searching.  The  problem 
has  been  to  determine  what  can  possibly  be  meant 
by  a  bond  between  events  —  how  such  a  conception 
can  be  understood.  Naturally  we  consider  that  we 
have  in  the  causal  connection  not  a  mere  time  se- 
quence of  events,  but  something  in.  the  antecedent 
which  reaches  out  and  relates  itself  to  the  result, 


146         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

furnishes  a  reason  why  it  appears  rather  than  some- 
thing else.  And  in  the  statement  that  the  causal 
idea  comes  to  light  in  the  experience  in  which 
we  enter  into  practical  relationships  of  purpose  to 
the  world  of  things,  the  suggestion  is  contained. 
What  can  I  mean  when  I  say  that  one  thing  affects 
another?  Nothing,  so  far  as  I  see,  except  as  they 
stand  in  relation  to  an  end  or  purpose.  Between 
two  events  merely  as  events  there  is  no  discoverable 
bond.  But  there  is  a  bond  between  them,  and  an 
intelligible  one,  when  they  both  are  looked  at  as  mo- 
ments or  steps  in  a  teleological  process.  For  with 
reference  to  the  end  one  conditions,  affects,  the  other. 
We  know  what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  the  mis- 
sile which  we  throw  knocks  the  apple  from  the  tree, 
instead  simply  of  being  followed  by  the  apple's 
fall.  The  whole  series  of  facts  —  flying  missile, 
impact,  falling  body  —  is  brought  together  into  a 
unity  by  our  conscious  intention  to  bring  about  the 
result;  and  it  is  with  reference  to  this  intention  of 
ours  that  the  impact  not  only  precedes]  the  fall,  but 
is  the  necessary  presupposition  of  it.  We  think  a 
bond  between  the  two  because  of  the  implicit  rela- 
tion of  both,  in  a  certain  definite  order,  to  the  end 
we  are  trying  to  reach ;  this  purpose  of  ours  is  the 
unity  which  binds  together  the  successive  steps 
that  are  required  for  its  attainment. 

The  point  of  the  conception  will  perhaps  be  clearer 
if  it  is  separated  more  explicitly  from  another  inti- 
mate aspect  of  the  situation.  If  we  consider  again 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE     147 

the  words  "power"  and  "force,"  it  seems  possible 
to  distinguish  in  them  two  elements  or  implications. 
One  is  the  connecting  link,  the  bond  of  relationship, 
which  serves  to  bring  cause  and  effect  into  an  intelli- 
gible unity,  and  gives  the  basis  for  the  influence  of 
rational  determination  which  one  exerts  over  the  other. 
This  is  what  I  have  hitherto  been  considering.  But 
there  is  another  aspect  also  of  the  idea  —  that  of 
assertiveness,  of  force  expended,  of  physical  as 
opposed  to  rational  determination  or  compulsion. 
Now  this  can  be  traced  without  much  doubt  to  our 
experience  of  putting  forth  effort.  The  feeling  of 
effort  which  we  get  when  we  exert  ourselves  in  the 
overcoming  of  obstacles  is  transferred  to  the  object, 
and  becomes  an  important  ingredient  in  the  com- 
plex causal  idea.  So  that  some  philosophers  have 
thought  that  in  this  we  get  the  real  solution  of  Hume's 
difficulty.  But  the  mere  feeling  of  effort  clearly  fails 
to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  problem  in  that  it  is 
quite  incapable  of  supplying  any  intelligible  bond. 
Between  the  sense  of  effort  and  the  subsequent  result 
there  is  no  connection  whatever  that  is  transparent 
to  thought.  Accordingly  the  subjective  sense  of 
effort  that  accompanies  our  active  endeavor  may  be 
ruled  out  from  the  final  interpretation  of  the  causal 
idea.  And  that  leaves  once  more  as  the  real  basis 
of  interpretation  the  rational  and  intelligible  connec- 
tion present  in  a  related  series  of  facts  or  steps 
united  by  their  association  with  a  common  end. 
Now  of  course  the  point  I  am  trying  to  make  is  not 


148         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

that  the  bringing  together  of  things  in  the  world  about 
us  by  their  relation  to  our  human  purposes  repre- 
sents a  real  and  valid  connection  in  the  things  them- 
selves. I  have  only  been  trying  to  find  a  way  —  any 
way  —  in  which  the  fact  of  a  connecting  bond  that 
involves  determination,  a  reason  in  the  prior  for  the 
sequent  event,  can  be  represented  to  thought ;  and 
the  only  way  of  representing  this  has  been  by  refer- 
ence to  a  teleological  bond  such  as  we  have  exem- 
plified in  our  own  purposive  lives.  A  slightly  differ- 
ent illustration  may  make  the  application  clearer. 
Instead  of  bringing  hi  the  ambiguous  relation  between 
ourselves  and  outer  objects,  a  process  might  be  chosen 
to  serve  as  an  example  which  confines  itself  to  the 
data  of  the  psychological  experience.  We  might 
take,  for  instance,  a  process  of  connected  thinking. 
In  active  thought  we  have  the  end  in  view  deter- 
mining the  appearance  and  connection  of  the  differ- 
ent ideas  or  thought  elements.  But  each  element 
also,  not  in  its  own  power,  but  by  its  relation  to  the 
ruling  idea  which  is  manifesting  itself  in  the  process 
as  a  whole,  may  be  said  to  have  its  influence  on  that 
which  follows,  to  determine  its  place  and  appearance, 
and  so  to  be  in  a  sense  its  cause. 

And  now  the  outcome  of  the  whole  discussion  is 
this :  The  idea  of  efficiency,  of  a  connecting  bond  of  i 
rational  determination,  is  an  apparently  ineradicable  i 
element  of  our  natural  view  of  causation.     But  it  ) 
is  not  easy  to  understand  the  nature  of  a  connection 
between  events  other  than  a  temporal  connection. 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  NATURE  149 

It  is  indeed  impossible  so  long  as  we  keep  to  the 
purely  naturalistic  plane.  But  in  conscious  experi- 
ence we  have  the  clew  to  a  possible  meaning.  It  is 
the  relation,  namely,  of  means  within  a  comprehen- 
sive end,  of  steps  in  a  purposive  process.  Two  ele- 
ments may  have  an  intelligible  bond  between  them 
if  both  are  elements  in  the  working  out  of  such  an 
end.  One  will  condition  the  other,  not  indeed 
through  its  own  power  as  a  separate  thing,  but  as 
one  step  in  a  process  conditions  the  next  step, 
through  the  controlling  influence  of  a  purpose  which 
only  can  carry  itself  out  by  a  series  of  steps  mu- 
tually implicating  one  another.  But  now  this 
enables  us  to  retain,  in  its  natural  meaning,  the  idea 
of  connection  in  the  outer  world,  only  in  case  we 
are  ready  to  adopt  the  hypothesis  that  this  world  is 
itself  in  its  true  nature  a  conscious  experience,  in 
which  alone  purposes  are  embodied.  With  this  in- 
terpretation, we  are  able  to  justify  the  actual  causal 
connection  between  things  in  an  intelligible  sense. 
For  if  we  look  on  the  world  as  representing  the  life 
of  God,  and  on  natural  things  as  elements  in  this 
conscious  life,  then  the  same  general  conception  will 
hold  good  here  also.  On  no  other  theory  does  it 
seem  possible  to  suggest  any  meaning  whatever  to 
the  notion  of  a  connecting  bond. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  repeat  that  if  this 
general  view  is  justified,  it  by  no  means  destroys 
the  value  and  validity  of  science  and  positive  law,  so 
long  as  these  do  not  set  themselves  up  as  a  complete 


150        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

philosophy.  The  justification  of  science  is  in  the 
practical  realm.  It  attempts  to  state,  not  what  re- 
ality is,  but  how  it  works ;  and  its  business  is  to  give 
man  control  over  his  environment.  If  indeed  we 
could  know  completely  the  meaning  of  the  world,  we 
might  be  in  a  position  to  deduce  the  details  of  the 
world  from  this.  But  clearly  we  are  in  no  such  case. 
We  do  not  know,  and  we  never  can  know,  the  pur- 
poses of  the  universe  in  so  definite  a  way  that  we  can 
deduce  from  them  the  mechanical  laws  of  its  action, 
and  so  completely  rationalize  it.  And  therefore 
it  is  wholly  useless  for  the  scientist  to  hunt  for  final 
causes.  Such  a  problem  is  indeed  not  an  illegitimate 
one.  It  means  simply  the  effort  to  get  at  the  mean- 
ing of  life ;  and  the  philosopher  is  bound  to  attempt 
it.  But  at  best  this  will  only  be  discoverable  in 
very  general  outline.  It  will  never  relate  itself  to 
the  particular  physical  events  and  laws  with  which 
science  deals.  Science  must  necessarily  work  from 
the  other  end.  It  is  concerned,  not  with  meaning, 
but  with  method.  In  order  to  fulfil  its  practical 
aim  it  is  in  duty  bound  to  have  nothing  to  do  with 
purpose  or  design,  but  only  with  the  discovery  of 
uniformities  of  working.  It  may  with  justice  object 
when  philosophy  or  religion  or  any  other  interest 
tries  to  interfere  with  this  task  and  to  dictate  its 
results.  But  it  also  should  remember  that  science 
is  not  the  whole  of  life,  and  be  less  ready  to  assert 
that  because  for  its  particular  purposes  a  given  con- 
cept is  useless  it  therefore  has  no  use  at  all. 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN 

So  far  the  attempt  has  been  to  show  that  we  have 
a  way  of  understanding  what  the  nature  of  the  ex- 
ternal world  may  be,  by  interpreting  it  in  terms  of 
another  reality  whose  existence  is  clearly  open  to  our 
knowledge  —  the  reality  of  ourselves  as  conscious 
beings.  We  are  sure  that  in  some  real  sense  we 
exist,  and  that  there  exist  also,  as  elements  within 
our  conscious  experience,  certain  perceptions  and 
thoughts  which  make  up  what  we  call  our  knowledge 
of  things.  The  hypothesis  is  that  the  real  things  — 
the  objects  of  our  knowledge  —  are  made  of  the  same 
fundamental  stuff  as  our  perceptions  of  them.  But 
since  for  our  natural  understanding  thoughts  and 
perceptions  are  not  ultimate  existences,  but  fall  into 
place  as  aspects  of  a  more  comprehensive  reality,  — • 
ourselves,  namely,  —  so  the  hypothesis  leads  us  to 
interpret  the  world  taken  together  as  also  a  unity, 
and  a  unity  of  the  same  sort  as  that  on  which  the 
entire  hypothesis  rests  —  the  unity  of  a  personal 
being. 

But  now  there  clearly  are  two  further  questions, 
at  least,  that  will  need  to  be  considered  before 
the  hypothesis  can  appear  well  grounded.  In  the 
first  place,  it  will  be  necessary  to  ask  more  exactly 


152         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

in  what  the  nature  of  our  own  experience  consists. 
Most  of  us  are  tolerably  sure  of  our  own  existence ; 
but  it  might  puzzle  us  to  give  any  coherent  account 
of  what  we  mean  by  this.  And  even  after  we  had 
attained  a  definition  there  might  be  difficulties  — 
presumably,  indeed,  there  would  be  —  in  transfer- 
ring the  conception  to  a  being  the  conditions  of  whose 
life  are  so  different  as  those  of  God's  life  must 
certainly  be.  Can  we  —  the  question  has  repeatedly 
been  asked  —  assign  to  a  reality  whose  existence  is 
supposed  to  be  infinite  and  eternal,  any  conception 
derived  from  a  being  confessedly  not  infinite,  but 
definitely  and  painfully  limited  in  its  nature  ?  This 
will  need  some  special  attention.  And  then  also  there 
is  this  second  problem  which  arises.  It  has  been  sim- 
ply the  natural  world  in  its  relation  to  our  knowledge 
which  has  thus  far  been  the  determining  factor  in  the 
hypothesis.  But  we  certainly  are  not  to  forget  that 
besides  external  things  there  are  other  realities 
which  have  to  be  fitted  into  the  scheme  of  the 
universe.  We  as  human  beings  also  exist,  and  our 
relation  accordingly  to  the  underlying  reality  which 
we  have  called  God  will  need  to  be  determined.  It 
is  to  this  latter  question  that  I  shall  turn  first. 

The  problem  in  its  most  general  form  is  this: 
We  are  in  search  of  some  conception  which  will  en- 
able us  to  give  an  intelligible  answer  to  the  question 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  unity  that  binds  the  whole 
sum  of  existing  things  together.  Now  in  so  far  as 
it  is  a  case  of  things,  we  have  already  an  answer  to 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN      153 

the  question.  Their  unity  is  that  which  comes  from 
belonging  to  what  we  know  empirically  as  a  single 
conscious  whole.  Such  a  conception  may  indeed 
need  further  scrutiny.  But  nevertheless  it  represents 
an  undeniable  fact  of  experience.  Whatever  may 
be  required  for  its  adequate  description,  we  are  as- 
sured that  it  is  possible  for  a  great  variety  of  distinct 
objects  in  consciousness  to  enter  into  what  is  at  the 
same  time  a  conscious  unity,  because  at  any  moment 
this  comes  home  to  us  as  a  fact  of  immediate  experi- 
encing. 

Now  it  may  perhaps  seem  that  in  this  same  con- 
ception we  also  have  the  solution  to  the  further  prob- 
lem —  the  nature  of  the  unity  of  God  and  of  lesser 
conscious  beings.  And  indeed  the  solution  has  been, 
and  is,  a  fairly  common  one.  That  not  only  things, 
but  persons,  are  hi  truth  no  more  than  elements  in 
the  all-embracing  unitary  consciousness  of  God,  is 
one  of  the  forms  of  that  pantheistic  -conception  of 
the  world  which  has  always  shown  itself  one  of  the 
most  seducing  of  philosophical  theories.  It  is  a 
conception  which  has  more  than  a  logical  motive 
back  of  it.  The  needs  of  religion  may  seem,  on 
the  surface  at  least,  to  point  in  this  direction.  Cer- 
tainly religion  tends  naturally  to  use  words  that  may 
easily  suggest  a  pantheistic  interpretation.  That 
God  is  all  in  all,  that  in  him  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being  —  such  phrases  fall  naturally  from 
the  lips  of  the  religious  man,  and  in  their  literal 
acceptation  would  appear  to  point  most  naturally 


154        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

to  a  reduction  of  every  reality  without  exception  to  a 
portion  of  the  divine  consciousness.  How  else,  one 
may  say,  are  we  to  save  the  absoluteness  of  God, 
who  ceases  to  be  infinite  if  he  is  limited  by  beings 
outside  himself?  And,  on  the  other  hand,  our  own 
reality  might  seem  to  be  endangered,  the  more  we 
insist  upon  our  separation  from  that  which  we  take 
to  be  the  source  and  essence  of  all  reality  alike. 

Nevertheless  there  seem  to  be  serious  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  accepting  this  solution.  In  the  first 
place,  it  may  well  be  doubted  to  what  extent  it  really 
expresses  the  religious  consciousness  or  the  religious 
need.  It  is  always  safe  before  we  make  much  use  of 
a  term  to  attempt  to  translate  it  back  pretty  directly 
into  concrete  human  experience.  Now  of  the  phrase 
" identity  with  God"  —  what  meaning  of  practical 
significance  and  value  does  it  have  ?  We  may  grant 
that  it  means  something  religiously  significant;  the 
question  is  about  its  interpretation.  When  we  make 
that  interpretation  in  the  form  of  an  actual  absorp- 
tion into  God's  being  in  the  way  of  constituting  an 
identical  part  of  his  consciousness,  as  a  sensation  or 
a  thought  enters  into  the  complex  of  the  conscious 
unity  which  we  call  ours,  does  this  represent  a  con- 
ception of  actual  experimental  worth?  And  if  it 
does,  what  form  does  that  worth  take?  Thus  I 
may  speak  intelligibly  of  identifying  myself  with  a 
cause.  But  I  mean,  of  course,  simply  this :  that  I 
take  up  certain  ends  in  my  own  consciousness  and 
use  them  to  regulate  my  life.  If  God  were  to  be 


THE  RELATION  OF   GOD  AND   MAN  155 

reduced  simply  to  an  ideal  without  objective  reality, 
tnen  this  might  be  the  meaning  we  should  assign  to 
identification  with  God;  but  such  an  interpretation 
is  obviously  inadequate  to  a  philosophy  which  makes 
the  relationship  between  God  and  man  an  actual 
fact  of  existence.  Or,  once  more,  we  may  take  what 
would  seem  to  be  a  more  fruitful  direction.  The 
modern  world  is  coming  more  and  more  to  feel  that 
if  there  is  to  be  any  real  body  and  permanent  satis- 
faction to  the  spiritual  life,  it  will  have  to  be  carried 
back  in  large  part  to  the  sort  of  experience  that  we  get 
concretely  and  verifiably  in  our  everyday  human  and 
social  relationships.  If  we  cannot  discover  the  clew 
to  its  meaning  in  such  terms,  which  more  and  more 
are  recognized  as  constituting  the  central  core  of  value 
in  our  lives,  then  we  are  likely  in  the  end  to  find  that 
we  have  attenuated  its  worth  and  weakened  its  hold 
upon  man's  allegiance.  Now  here  also  in  the  social 
realm  there  is  a  verifiable  and  significant  sense  in 
which  we  may  talk  of  identifying  ourselves  with 
others.  But  it  distinctly  is  not  to  merge  our  con- 
scious lives  into  a  single  and  inseparable  whole  of 
conscious  content.  Rather  it  is  to  work  for  common 
interests  and  care  for  the  same  things,  to  feel  a  con- 
cern each  for  the  other's  welfare,  a  respect  for  his 
character,  a  regard  for  the  essential  individuality  of 
the  other.  Two  things  in  this  situation  —  and  these 
two  the  most  fundamental  —  are  wholly  foreign  to  an 
absolute  merging  and  absorption.  Love,  as  human 
love,  presupposes  necessarily  the  self -identical  and 


156        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

independent  consciousness  of  the  one  toward  whom 
it  is  directed.  And  the  moral  life,  about  which  some 
of  the  deepest  values  cling,  in  its  turn  involves  alike 
a  personal  autonomy  which  absorption  would  de- 
stroy, and  an  extra-personal,  an  outgoing  and  un- 
selfish concern  for  others,  for  which  no  converging 
of  all  reality  to  a  single  self-conscious  centre  could 
find  a  place. 

So  much  briefly  for  the  difficulty  that  is  raised  by 
certain  of  our  spiritual  interests.  One  might  elabo- 
rate also  the  more  technical  objection  which  has 
already  been  suggested :  that  to  thrust  human  selves 
bodily  into  a  larger  consciousness  would  confuse 
seriously  the  outlines  of  the  world  of  our  knowledge, 
and  leave  us  frankly  without  any  comprehension  of 
the  real  nature  of  things  concretely.  But  the  point 
on  which  I  prefer  to  dwell  is  of  a  more  distinctly 
logical  kind,  and  has  the  advantage  that  if  it  is  valid 
at  all,  it  is  decisively  valid.  And  in  a  word  it  is  this : 
There  are  certain  aspects  of  our  actual  human  ex- 
perience which  I  do  not  see  how  it  is  possible  to  make 
consistent  with  an  all-inclusive  experience  without 
practically  denying  their  existence  outright.  The 
point  is  at  bottom  simple.  I  will  take  as  an  illus- 
tration the  fact  of  ignorance.  I  am,  we  will  suppose, 
at  work  upon  a  problem  which  baffles  me  and  of 
whose  complete  solution  I  am  at  present  unaware. 
This  present  state  of  consciousness  of  mine  is  a  con- 
crete fact  which  psychology  may  make  an  object  of 
study.  Now  can  this  concrete  state  of  mind  exist  un- 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN      157 

changed  in  all  its  detail  in  an  all-knowing  conscious- 
ness? I  can  only  reply  that  to  me  the  supposition 
seems  to  involve  a  contradiction  in  terms.  What 
gives  it  plausibility  is  a  fact  of  experience  which  in 
reality  when  examined  offers  a  basis  for  no  such  con- 
clusion. It  is  perfectly  true  that  my  former  igno- 
rance may  well  be  included,  in  a  sense,  in  a  later 
experience  which  recalls  the  details  of  the  former  dif- 
ficulty while  yet  it  sees  the  way  out.  But  in  what 
sense?  Not  that  I  can  feel  ignorant  and  feel  that 
I  am  not  ignorant  within  the  same  pulse  of  conscious 
realization,  but  that  I  can  remember  my  former  ig- 
norance even  now  that  I  have  passed  beyond  it; 
and  this  is  a  very  different  thing.  Surely  not  all  the 
aspects  of  the  earlier  experience  would  be  present 
unchanged  in  the  later  one,  the  actual  feel  of  it,  its 
peculiar  and  intimate  emotional  atmosphere.  Would 
not  that  come  pretty  close  to  being  an  example  of 
the  psychologist's  fallacy?  Take  the  feeling  of 
being  baffled.  Can  I  feel  baffled  and  see  the  solution 
in  the  same  experience  ?  Can  I  feel  baffled  and  feel 
everything  sun-clear  all  as  a  unitary  fact  of  conscious- 
ness ?  I  can  remember  that  I  was  baffled  in  the  past. 
But  this  is  not  identically  the  same  fact  as  the  pre- 
ceding fact.  The  very  instant  the  truth  begins  to 
dawn  upon  me  my  state  of  mind  suffers  a  transfor- 
mation, and  the  distinguishing  tone  of  the  instant 
before  has  disappeared.  It  is  very  likely  indeed  that 
there  may  be  an  emotional  reverberation  that  per- 
sists into  the  new  conditions.  My  body  is  keyed  to 


158        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

the  prior  situation,  and  it  need  not  on  the  moment 
lose  the  peculiar  thrill  of  the  nerves  that  belongs  to 
this.  But  that  special  state  of  mind  which  we  call 
as  a  whole  the  sense  of  ignorance  is  gone  the  moment 
the  light  breaks  in.  The  only  way  to  recover  it  in 
its  original  completeness  would  be  to  go  back  to  the 
earlier  conditions  and  banish  again  for  a  time  from 
consciousness  my  more  recent  and  completer  knowl- 
edge. Nor  again  is  this  new  state  of  knowing  itself 
the  same  fact  that  it  would  have  been  had  a  pre- 
vious experience  not  existed  in  which  my  whole  con- 
sciousness was  tinged  temporarily  by  the  presence 
of  a  problem  unsolved.  Had  there  not  been  a  period 
in  which  I  did  not  see  the  solution,  I  could  not  now 
know  my  ignorance ;  and  my  sense  of  a  knowledge 
that  has  issued  from  ignorance  is  a  different  state  of 
mind  from  something  that  was  eternally  knowledge. 
The  point  is,  then,  that  the  attempt  to  conceive 
what  we  call  human  experience  as  an  identical  part 
of  a  comprehensive  and  all-knowing  experience  in- 
volves the  confusion  between  the  existence  of  a  state 
as  a  fact  of  immediate  experiencing,  and  a  subsequent 
knowledge  of  that  state  separated  from  it  empirically 
by  an  interval  of  time.  More  particularly  does  the 
problem  press  us  when  we  are  dealing  with  the  emo- 
tional and  volitional  aspects  of  our  conscious  life. 
An  intellectual  or  perceptual  content  may  indeed 
enter  into  various  combinations  without  suffering 
any  change  that  forces  itself  upon  our  attention,  and 
it  is  through  having  an  intellectual  content  chiefly 


THE  RELATION   OF  GOD  AND  MAN  159 

in  mind  that  the  difficulty  has  so  often  passed  un- 
heeded by  the  pantheist.  But  our  feelings  very 
obviously  are  closely  bound  up  with  the  very  limita- 
tions of  our  conscious  life,  and  how  these  limitations 
are  to  be  overcome  without  altering  the  emotional 
aroma  is  not  to  my  mind  at  all  apparent.  For  one 
thing,  it  is  a  frequent  quality  of  emotions  that  they 
dominate  consciousness  as  a  whole,  fill  for  the  time 
being  every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  mind ;  and  their 
quality  would  be  distinctly  different  were  this  not  so. 
An  emotion  of  joy,  for  example,  which  wholly  pos- 
sesses us,  is  not  the  same  emotion  as  joy  which  leaves 
room  for  some  tincture  of  regret,  or  disillusionment, 
or  questioning  about  our  perfect  happiness.  But 
human  emotions  never  can  characterize  God's  con- 
sciousness as  a  whole,  and  for  that  reason  man's 
emotions  never  can  come  home  in  terms  of  immediate 
and  identical  feeling  to  an  all-embracing  experience. 
Is  my  feeling  of  ignorance  or  despair  identical  with 
anything  that  can  exist  for  God's  consciousness? 
Suppose  my  despair  is  for  the  moment  utter  and  com- 
plete. Can  God  have  an  identical  feeling  without 
himself  being  in  complete  despair?  Is  my  feeling 
different  from  God's?  Does  the  human  fact  change 
as  it  enters  into  the  larger  whole  ?  It  is  almost  im- 
possible to  state  the  theory  without  using  words  which 
imply  that  this  is  so;  it  is  quite  impossible  in  my 
opinion  to  think  it  without  recognizing  that  it  must 
be  so.  But  if  the  human  fact  is  changed,  it  is  not  the 
same.  There  are,  that  is,  two  facts,  only  one  of  which 


l6o         RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

comes  directly  within  the  absolute  experience.  My 
actual  feeling  is  something  which  God  cannot  feel 
as  I  jeel  it.  Or  consider  once  more  the  fact  of  limita- 
tion itself.  That  our  consciousness  is  limited  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  It  is  equally  certain  that  we  may 
have  a  sense  of  this  limitation.  But  how  again  could 
a  being  have  a  sense  of  limitation  for  whom  the  limita- 
tion did  not  exist  at  all  ?  It  is  not  the  fact  of  being 
a  part  which  causes  the  difficulty,  but  the  quality  of 
consciousness  which  goes  along  with  this.  In  par- 
ticular, a  distinction  must  be  made  between  the  con- 
sciousness that  a  total  experience  has  of  one  of  its  dis- 
tinguishable parts,  and  the  feeling  which  a  smaller 
totality  may  have  of  its  own  partial  and  limited 
character.  A  sensation  in  my  experience  does  not 
feel  itself  a  limited  element  of  experience,  though  I, 
the  total  consciousness,  can  know  it  to  be  such.  But 
I  as  a  human  self  can  feel  my  own  restrictions,  and  this 
means  the  addition  of  a  novel  element  to  the  situa- 
tion. The  being  a  part  de  facto,  and  the  recognition 
by  this  part  that  it  is  a  part,  are  two  entirely  different 
things.  And  there  is  no  fact  of  experience  whatso- 
ever that  gives  us  a  way  of  understanding  the  latter 
case  —  the  inclusion  of  a  self-conscious  state  in  a 
larger  whole.  The  analogy  is  based  upon  the  pres- 
ence in  consciousness  of  what  we  know  to  be  a  part, 
such  as,  for  example,  a  sensation,  and  not  on  a  part 
which  is  5e//-conscious. 

If,  then,  there  is  any  force  in  the  difficulty  I  have 
raised,  I  see  only  two  possibilities  open.     Either  we 


THE   RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN  l6l 

must  deny  that  the  apparent  facts  of  human  con- 
sciousness —  the  facts  that  psychology  investigates 
—  have  as  such  any  existence.  Or  we  must  admit 
that  there  are  facts  which  we  know  to  exist,  but  which 
cannot  be  conceived  as  lying  within  a  single  compre- 
hensive experience.  The  human  self,  in  other  words, 
cannot  be  brought  bodily  within  a  larger  conscious- 
ness existing  at  the  same  moment  of  reality  and  over- 
lapping it.  It  must  have  a  life  in  some  real  sense,  as 
a  matter  of  immediate  experiencing,  unshared  even 
by  God.  The  idea  of  an  inclusion  within  a  single 
unitary  consciousness  cannot  be  the  true  solution  of 
the  problem  which  we  have  on  hand,  and  it  will  be 
necessary  to  look  for  some  other  way  of  meeting  the 
demand  that  the  world  should  have  a  unity. 

Now  there  is  another  way  in  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed, as  a  matter  of  actual  fact,  — and  philosophy 
is  not  called  upon  to  invent  its  categories,  but  only 
to  discover  them,  —  to  think  a  unity  to  the  world  of 
spirit,  and  a  way  which  is  moreover  for  practical 
thought  far  more  vital  and  ultimate  than  mere  in- 
clusion within  an  empirical  unity  of  consciousness. 
This  is  through  the  notion  of  cooperation  in  common 
purposes  or  ends.  If  I  look  to  what  I  mean  by  a  self, 
it  is  always  a  self  in  active  relationship  with  other 
selves.  The  unity  which  includes  them  is  not  any- 
thing that  merges  them  into  a  single  self.  It  is  the 
unity  of  end  which,  present  ideally  in  the  thought  of 
each,  enables  them  to  act  together  and  contribute 
mutually  to  one  another's  life.  The  connection  is 


l62         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

one  of  active  cooperation  between  beings  who  possess 
each  a  life  of  his  own,  rather  than  of  identity  or  in- 
clusion within  a  single  conscious  whole.  It  is  only 
in  the  realm  of  knowledge  that  all  the  universe  gets 
actually  brought  together  in  the  same  mind,  the  same 
unity  of  conscious  content.  But  knowledge  is  only 
representative  and  secondary ;  the  unity  of  the  reality 
which  it  represents  —  the  world  of  selves  —  is  of  a 
different  sort.  The  ideal  representation  of  the  whole 
in  knowledge  is  only  a  means  through  which  each 
individual  is  enabled  to  play  his  part  in  the  higher 
unity  —  the  unity  of  social  life  and  cooperation. 
Men  are  united,  not  by  literal  identity,  but  through 
their  participation  in  common  purposes  which  the 
ideal  transcendence  involved  in  knowledge  renders 
possible  —  a  participation  which  is  so  far  from  deny- 
ing their  separate  personal  existence  that  it  presup- 
poses it.  For  it  is  on  personal  relationships  that  the 
worth  and  meaning  of  the  ends  are  based. 

We  have  only,  then,  to  extend  this  conception  a 
step  farther,  in  order  to  pass  from  what  is  merely 
an  account  of  the  social  order  to  a  philosophy  of  the 
universe.  The  ultimate  way  for  understanding  the 
universe  is  not  self-consciousness,  but  a  society  of 
selves.  But  in  this  community  there  is  one  member 
who  occupies  a  quite  exceptional  position.  For  God, 
as  the  inner  reality  of  what  we  call  the  world  of 
nature,  stands  clearly  somehow  in  a  special  way  at 
the  centre  of  things,  as  human  selves  do  not.  In  him 
there  are  summed  up  the  conditions  which  are  needed 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN  163 

to  account  fully  for  the  lesser  world  of  our  own  more 
immediate  social  experience,  since  the  lives  of  men 
confessedly  have  their  roots  in  nature.  In  him 
therefore  we  may  suppose  the  unity  of  the  whole 
is  directly  reflected,  and  there  are  gathered 
the  broken  threads  of  the  universal  purpose  as 
it  appears  in  our  partial  and  limited  human 
experiences.  But  none  the  less,  if  we  are  to 
follow  the  conception,  is  he  still  only  one  member 
of  the  community,  and  not  the  whole  sum  of 
existing  things.  He  exists  as  one  whose  nature  needs 
the  positing  of  other  lives  which  do  not  come  within 
the  same  immediate  conscious  unity  as  his  own. 
He  also  is  a  social  being  as  men  are,  and  finds  his 
life  in  social  cooperation,  though  the  complete  con- 
ditions of  his  life  may  be  eternally  present  to  his  con- 
sciousness as  they  are  not  to  ours.  But  while  his 
knowledge  thus  may  cover  all  existence,  the  inclusion 
will  be  one  of  knowledge  simply.  My  conscious  life 
will  still  be  mine  alone,  which  no  one  else  in  the  uni- 
verse can  directly  share,  not  even  God  himself.  No 
one  else  feels  my  feelings  or  has  my  sensations. 

Of  course,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  concep- 
tion that  has  just  been  proposed  should  pass  without 
further  scrutiny.  It  is  indeed  a  simple  and  familiar 
one,  which  is  so  much  in  its  favor;  and  its  signifi- 
cance for  human  life  requires  no  argument.  There 
are,  however,  questions  which  clearly  need  further 
attention  before  it  can  be  adopted  finally,  and  diffi- 
culties that  will  have  to  be  considered.  Meanwhile 


164        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF   THE  WORLD 

it  is  desirable  to  keep  in  view  just  what  it  is  that  the 
conception  involves,  and  not  to  exaggerate  the  diffi- 
culties by  refusing  to  keep  the  qualifying  considera- 
tions in  their  proper  balance.  The  theory  can  be 
taken  to  mean,  for  example,  that  each  self  has  an 
existence  in  its  own  right,  is  absolutely  separate  and 
independent,  and  that  the  relations  to  others  are 
superinduced  upon  it ;  whereas  the  very  point  of  the 
conception  is  that  reality  consists  of  selves  in  relation. 
The  relation  to  other  selves,  and  more  ultimately  to 
God,  is  absolutely  indispensable  to  the  life  and 
reality  of  these  constituent  parts  of  the  whole  society. 
The  recognition  of  ends  reaching  beyond  the  self- 
contained  matter  of  their  immediate  feelings  is  nec- 
essary to  give  to  their  lives  content  and  meaning. 
What  this  signifies,  again,  is  to  be  determined,  not  by 
speculation,  but  by  appealing  to  experience  itself, 
and  to  the  clear  fact  that  the  concrete  filling  of  our 
lives  as  human  beings  does  thus  implicate  the  social 
world  to  which  we  belong,  and  apart  from  this  would 
be  indefinitely  poorer  and  more  abstract.  But  now 
this  applies  to  God  also  as  well  as  to  man.  He  too 
does  not  stand  out  in  hard  and  fast  independence  of 
the  realm  of  lesser  selves.  These  are  equally  a  part 
of  reality  with  God,  and  are  implicated  in  his  nature 
as  he  in  theirs.  This  latter  aspect  of  the  relation- 
ship —  the  dependence  of  man  upon  God  —  is  at 
the  bottom  of  what  we  commonly  think  of  as  crea- 
tion. And  there  is  a.  sense  in  which  we  may  speak 
of  man  as  created  by  God.  When,  that  is,  we  take 


THE  RELATION   OF   GOD  AND   MAN  165 

the  ordinary  point  of  view  of  the  world  process  as 
one  which  goes  on  in  time,  man  clearly  makes  his 
appearance  only  at  a  certain  point.  His  life  cannot 
be  explained  except  by  taking  into  account  conditions 
already  present  in  the  world  of  nature,  and  he  has 
no  independence  or  freedom  of  action  outside  the 
general  laws  which  govern  this  world. 

But  if  we  use  the  word  "creation,"  we  should  not  be 
misled  by  its  common  connotation.  Strictly  it  should 
mean  no  more  than  causal  and  rational  dependence. 
The  other  side  of  the  relationship  should  equally 
be  borne  in  mind,  according  to  which  God  also  is  in 
a  sense  dependent  upon  man.  Creation  must  not 
be  taken  to  imply,  that  is,  that  the  created  being  has 
no  essential  relationship  except  to  the  mere  will  and 
power  of  God,  and  that  its  existence  therefore  is  an 
arbitrary  matter.  God  is  not  first  of  all  a  being 
sufficient  to  himself,  who  afterwards  decides  to  create 
other  selves.  He  is  social  in  his  inmost  nature.  And 
accordingly  I  am  an  essential  and  original  constituent 
of  reality,  in  the  sense  that  my  life  enters  ideally  into 
the  purpose  which  from  all  eternity  is  working  itself 
out  in  the  life  of  the  universe,  and  which  we  may 
suppose  is  eternally  present  in  the  consciousness  of 
God.  God  would  not  be  himself  were  it  not  for  the 
part  which  I  play  in  his  life.  My  life  is  not  indeed 
eternal  in  the  sense  that  it  has  existed  as  an  actual 
psychological  experience  throughout  all  time.  But 
in  the  one  truly  permanent  being,  God,  who  is  now, 
and  was,  and  ever  shall  be,  this  life  of  mine  is  eter- 


l66        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF   THE   WORLD 

nally  implicated.  The  relationship  to  human  lives 
that  are  later  to  appear  enters  from  the  beginning 
into  the  make-up  and  meaning  of  God's  nature.  So 
when  reality  is  taken  in  its  full  compass  these  human 
selves,  each  with  its  own  private  store  of  feeling,  and 
with  its  special  part  to  play  in  action,  are  ultimate 
elements  within  it. 

It  may  be  brought  against  this  as  an  objection  that 
we  are  distinguishing  between  God  and  absolute 
reality,  and  are  making  God  less  than  the  whole,  and 
therefore  finite.  Of  course  in  a  sense  this  is  true. 
God's  immediate  life  on  such  a  showing  is  not  co- 
extensive with  reality.  He  may  be  absolute  in  knowl- 
edge, absolute  in  the  completeness  of  his  experience 
which  has  no  broken  edges  —  of  this  I  shall  speak 
presently ;  but  he  is  in  point  of  existence  less  than 
the  whole.  The  objection,  however,  usually  is  in- 
tended to  imply  —  and  this  need  not  be  true  —  that 
in  saying  this  we  are  limiting  God  in  point  of  value. 
Which,  however,  represents  the  higher  type  of  exist- 
ence, I  will  ask,  judging  by  the  best  standard  we  are 
able  to  apply,  a  being  shut  up  within  the  limits  of 
his  own  self-centred  nature,  or  one  who  finds  his  life 
by  losing  it  in  the  common  life  which  he  shares  with 
others?  And  if  the  latter  is  our  truest  ideal,  why 
should  we  still  claim  that  because  God  is  such  a  God 
rather  than  another  his  dignity  is  thereby  lowered  ? 
It  may  be  the  very  condition  of  his  absoluteness  in 
the  true  sense  that  there  should  be  beings  beyond 
him  to  increase  the  perfection  of  his  own  life.  Spir- 


THE  RELATION   OF  GOD  AND   MAN  167 

itual  being  and  spiritual  completeness  override  the 
restrictions  of  formal  and  mechanical  thought. 
"The  more  angels,  the  more  room;"  the  greater  the 
number  of  those  to  whom  I  stand  socially  related, 
the  greater  the  possibility  of  harmony  and  self -com- 
pleteness in  my  life.  And  if  it  be  said  that  we  do  not 
see  how  reality  can  give  rise  to  such  quasi-separate- 
ness  of  existence,  I  do  not  understand  why  it  is  not 
legitimate  to  fall  back  upon  the  answer  that  it  is  our 
business  to  state  what  reality  is,  and  not  how  it  is 
possible,  or  the  way  it  was  made.  If  such  a  concep- 
tion can  be  thought  free  from  self-contradiction,  and 
if  it  should  happen  to  be  a  conception  to  which  the 
facts  of  life  point,  is  not  that  enough  ?  It  is  sufficient 
for  us  if  we  can  see  its  meaning.  And  its  meaning 
is  implicated  in  our  whole  social  existence. 

There  are  further  questions  which  must  be  met 
in  order  to  render  this  hypothesis  complete.  Before 
turning  to  them,  however,  a  little  more  needs  to  be 
said  in  order  to  clear  up  the  nature  of  the  relation- 
ship between  God  and  man  in  terms  of  the  causal 
idea.  And  this  will  give  an  opportunity  to  consider 
one  problem  in  particular  which  has  played  a  some- 
what important  part  in  modern  thought,  and  to 
which  the  hypothesis  enables  us  to  suggest  a  more  or 
less  satisfactory  solution.  To  do  this,  certain  dis- 
tinctions in  the  meaning  of  causality  will  need  to  be 
drawn,  which  I  shall  try  to  make  as  little  involved 
as  the  character  of  the  subject-matter  will  allow. 

In  the  first  place,  we  may  use  the  word  "cause"  in 


1 68        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

the  wide  and  general  sense  of  explanation  or  reason. 
I  have  already  had  occasion  to  indicate  what  seems 
to  be  our  ultimate  meaning  when  we  say  that  we  have 
given  an  explanation  of  anything.  There  are,  to  be 
sure,  two  common  senses  in  which  the  term  is  used. 
In  a  less  ultimate  sense  we  speak  of  explaining  a  fact 
when  we  reduce  it  to  a  case  of  some  simpler  and  more 
familiar  fact.  But  such  a  process  evidently  assumes 
its  final  term,  which  is  thus  not  explained,  but  simply 
taken  for  granted.  To  stop  thus  with  a  mere  "  what " 
or  "how"  is,  however,  not  a  final  and  completely  sat- 
isfactory attitude.  The  unsophisticated  mind  goes 
on  to  demand  in  addition  the  reason  why.  And  as 
there  has  already  been  occasion  to  see,  the  reason  for 
a  thing  has  no  interpretable  meaning  except  as  it 
brings  in  a  reference  to  some  end  which  is  served. 
When  once  a  purpose  can  be  assigned,  we  feel  that 
we  have  reached  something  in  which  we  can  rest; 
the  mere  flow  of  facts  is  rounded  into  a  whole,  and 
we  have  a  system  that  is  relatively  independent  and 
self -explaining. 

In  this  first  and  general  sense,  therefore,  as  mutu- 
ally dependent  elements  within  a  system  of  common 
ends,  we  should  say  at  once  that  I  myself  and  the 
events  which  make  up  my  life  find  in  some  degree 
their  cause  and  explanation  in  God,  and  therefore 
in  the  world  processes  that  are  aspects  of  God's 
experience.  If  reality  is  in  truth  a  cooperative  so- 
cial whole,  it  is  only  in  terms  of  this  whole  that  the 
meaning  of  my  life  can  be  at  all  understood.  On 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN      169 

the  other  hand,  I  am  with  equal  truth  involved  in  the 
explanation  of  events  in  the  lives  of  these  my  fellow- 
beings  —  men  and  God  alike.  As  an  integral  part 
of  the  whole  of  things,  what  I  do  and  what  I  am  is 
necessary  for  the  complete  understanding  of  the  life 
of  other  beings ;  and  in  the  same  sense  I  may  be  said 
to  be  a  cause.  Here,  once  more,  cause  stands  simply 
as  a  requirement  for  the  rational  interpretation  of 
meaning. 

But  now,  in  the  second  place,  within  this  large  con- 
ception experience  points  to  a  distinction.  There 
is  a  sense  in  which  I  am  the  cause  of  my  own  acts 
as  I  am  not  the  cause  of  what  any  other  being  may 
do.  Indirectly  I  may  be  the  source  of  some  experi- 
ence in  another  man's  life ;  but  it  is  always  indirectly. 
I  do  not  consider  that  I  have  done  his  deed  —  he  is 
the  one  that  has  done  it ;  or  that  I  am  morally  re- 
sponsible for  the  act  —  it  is  he  again  that  is  respon- 
sible. I  may  have  a  responsibility  of  my  own  in 
connection  with  it ;  but  it  is  after  all  only  he,  the  doer, 
who  is  the  final  source  of  every  act  that  is  a  part  of 
his  own  experience  or  life.  For  all  the  elements  of 
what  we  call  the  experience  of  any  individual  being 
enter  into  a  special  psychological  connection  with 
the  ends  that  rule  his  life ;  they  form  a  special  system 
into  which  all  other  facts  that  influence  him  have 
to  be  translated  before  they  become  real  for  him. 
It  is  this  psychological  connection  which  an  act  gets  in 
a  particular  system  of  ends,  and  which  is  empirically 
different  from  the  looser  and  less  intimate  connection 


1 70        RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

it  has  with  other  parts  of  the  universe,  that  affords 
the  basis  for  this  second  distinction  in  the  idea  of 
causality ;  for  all  this  system  of  acts  we  consider  that 
the  individual  is  alone  the  responsible  agent. 

But  now  this  leads  to  the  third  point  —  the  point 
about  which  the  main  difficulty  centres ;  but  it  also 
suggests  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty.  If  we  turn  back 
to  the  scientific  view  of  the  world,  we  find  there  are 
some  very  strong  reasons  for  asserting  that  there  can 
be  no  interaction,  no  causal  relation  at  all  in  the 
scientific  sense,  between  ourselves  and  the  world,  or 
the  body  which  constitutes  a  part  of  this  world.  The 
chief  objection  which  science  finds  to  the  ordinary 
conception  of  an  action  of  mind  upon  body  is  this : 
that  it  seems  to  interfere  with  the  all-sufficiency  of 
physical  law  and  physical  explanation.  Modern 
science,  from  a  complicated  mixture  of  assumptions 
and  experimental  evidence,  has  built  up  the  doctrine 
of  the  conservation  of  energy.  According  to  this 
doctrine  the  physical  universe  is  in  a  sense  a  closed 
system  within  which  energy  is  neither  lost  nor  gained. 
Events  consequently  follow  one  upon  another  with 
such  a  mathematically  determinable  connection  that 
the  intrusion  of  any  influence  in  their  production 
which  is  not  represented  by  preceding  physical  events 
is  rendered  highly  improbable.  But  consciousness 
is  not  a  physical  fact.  And  therefore  it  would  seem 
to  lie  wholly  outside  the  chain  of  physical  processes, 
without  causal  influence  upon  them.  The  common 
belief,  accordingly,  that  our  thoughts  and  desires  in 


THE  RELATION  OF   GOD  AND   MAN  1 71 

any  way  influence  our  actions,  would  have  to  be  set 
aside  as  a  delusion.  It  is  true  that  our  natural 
belief  is,  without  any  manner  of  doubt,  that  these 
thoughts  and  feelings  do  directly  determine  our  con- 
duct. To  the  average  man  this  will  appear  so  self- 
evident  that  he  will  have  difficulty  in  understanding 
how  any  one  can  be  foolish  enough  to  deny  it.  Fur- 
thermore, it  is  very  hard  to  see  how  if  consciousness 
has  no  practical  use  or  influence  it  ever  could  have 
been  preserved  in  the  process  of  evolution.  And 
yet  in  spite  of  this  the  scientist  probably  will  not  be 
satisfied.  His  whole  temper  of  mind  points  him  in 
the  direction  of  a  strictly  physical  explanation  for 
all  natural  processes.  And  to  give  up  such  an  ex- 
planation in  the  case  of  the  human  body  is  only  pos- 
sible at  the  expense  of  an  unpleasant  wrench,  and  an 
abiding  sense  of  intellectual  uneasiness.  It  is  not 
an  easy  thing  for  him  to  imagine  molecular  motion 
suddenly  stopping,  without  further  physical  effects, 
to  give  place  to  a  sensation  or  memory,  or  to  imagine 
a  movement  setting  up  in  another  part  of  the  brain 
inexplicable  from  any  preceding  physical  cause. 
And  certainly  if  we  could  find  a  way  of  granting  this 
scientific  demand,  and  still  justify  the  claims  of 
common  sense,  we  could  hardly  hesitate  to  choose  it 
in  preference  to  the  doctrine  of  interaction. 

And  this  is  what  I  think  the  conception  of  reality 
at  which  we  have  arrived  will  enable  us  to  do.  The 
point  of  the  solution  is  the  distinction  between  the 
more  general  and  ideal,  and  the  stricter  scientific, 


172        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

meaning  of  the  term  "cause."  All  that  the  scientific 
demand  amounts  to  is  this :  that  the  system  of  reality 
which  the  physical  world  represents  should  reveal 
certain  sequences  and  conformities,  should  constitute 
in  reference  to  the  relationships  summed  up  in  physical 
law  a  closed  system.  If  this  is  granted,  it  can  make  no 
possible  difference  to  science  what  other  relationships 
to  reality  outside  may  be  claimed  for  it.  Now,  that 
the  physical  world  should  show  such  a  self-contained 
nexus  of  relationships  is  not  only  conceivable,  but 
in  terms  of  the  preceding  hypothesis  it  might  even 
be  expected.  It  has  already  been  maintained  that 
the  life  of  each  self  constitutes  in  a  sense  a  special 
system;  and  this  must  be  true  as  well  therefore  of 
God,  and  of  the  world  system  which  is  the  particular 
expression  of  his  life.  Here,  then,  is  the  paradox, 
the  apparent  contradiction.  Science  demands  that 
the  bodily  movements  should  have  a  purely  physical 
explanation,  and  that  there  should  be  no  intrusion 
from  the  outside  to  interfere  with  a  statement  in 
terms  of  physical  law.  Philosophy  and  common 
sense  demand  that  consciousness  be  given  some  part 
to  play,  some  significance,  in  the  concrete  psycho- 
physical  life  which  includes  our  bodily  movements. 
And  the  solution,  again,  is  to  be  found  T>"  making  use 
of  the  distinction  between  the  k  and  mechanism 
of  the  world,  and  the  meaning  of  tne  world.  We  may 
grant  to  science  that  the  brain  is  a  mechanism,  mean- 
ing by  this  that,  like  the  rest  of  the  physical  universe, 
it  works  according  to  fixed  laws  which  science  con- 


THE  RELATION   OF  GOD  AND  MAN  173 

ceivably  can  discover;  and  that  moreover  in  these 
laws  it  follows  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of 
energy.  But  why  it  should  follow  just  these  laws 
and  no  others  is  capable  of  a  more  ultimate  inter- 
pretation. The  law  which  the  scientist  discovers 
is  nothing  final,  but  has  its  source  in  the  meaning  of 
God's  life.  So  if,  in  connection  with  the  brain,  a 
quasi-independent  fact  of  conscious  human  experi- 
ence appears,  if  the  deepest  significance  we  can  dis- 
cover in  the  world  connects  itself  with  just  these 
finite  selves,  then  they  too  as  a  part  of  the  significance 
of  things  would  help  to  determine  the  laws  of  the 
world,  and  in  particular  of  that  special  part  of  the 
world  with  which  they  stand  in  most  immediate  con- 
tact. God  is  a  self,  a  unity  of  conscious  experience 
akin  in  nature  to  the  life  which  we  live  as  in- 
dividuals. And  just  as  our  life  has  meaning  only 
as  it  recognizes  its  place  in  a  community  of  beings 
working  together  for  common  ends,  and  yet  having 
each  an  existence  that  is  separate  and  distinct,  so 
God's  life  is  real  to  him  only  as  it  involves  a  social 
order,  a  community  of  selves,  whose  experiences  are 
distinct  from  his  while  yet  it  is  his  relationship  to 
them  by  which  the  value  of  his  own  experience  is 
constituted.  Accordingly  as  God's  activity,  ex- 
pressed in  the  regular  workings  of  the  world  of  things, 
includes  in  its  meaning  the  interrelationships  be- 
tween itself  and  finite  lives,  my  consciousness  will  be 
a  factor  in  determining  what  the  laws  of  the  world's 
activity  shall  be.  To  use  a  human  illustration,  a 


174         RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

plan  of  action  which  I  as  an  individual  form  is  no  less 
definite,  straightforward,  subject  to  accurate  and 
law-revealing  description,  because  I  have  anticipated 
other  persons'  actions  and  allowed  for  them  in  the 
making  of  my  plan  originally.  So  God's  purposes 
are  constituted  by  the  relation  in  which  his  life  stands 
to  other  —  finite  —  lives  existing  outside  the  limits 
of  the  physical  world  which  science  studies.  Since, 
however,  they  do  this  eternally  through  the  medium 
of  the  unitary  purpose  which  is  the  presupposition 
of  all  law,  rather  than  by  coming  in  afterward  to 
change  laws  already  established,  science  cannot 
appeal  to  them.  Above  the  system  of  quantitative 
relationships  which  make  up  the  universe  of  science, 
lies  the  world  of  meaning,  of  conscious  purpose,  by 
which  the  former  is  determined ;  and  of  this  world 
of  meaning  finite  lives  are  a  part.  As  such  they  are 
not  to  be  explained  by  mechanism.  It  is  on  them 
that  the  laws  of  mechanism  themselves  depend,  not 
again  in  their  own  power,  but  through  the  part  they 
play  in  the  meaning  of  the  whole.  Consciousness 
accordingly  is  nothing  that  breaks  into  the  mechani- 
cal workings  of  the  brain  from  the  outside  to  deflect 
them  from  their  course.  Science  needs  none  but 
mechanical  laws  in  the  case  of  the  human  body  as 
well  as  of  the  stone.  For  mechanism  only  means 
that  reality  acts  with  a  certain  mathematically 
determinable  regularity  —  a  regularity  which  it  is 
the  special  business  of  science  to  discover.  But 
as  such  it  is  an  abstraction.  It  depends  upon  the 
meaning  of  the  experience  as  a  concrete  whole, 


THE  RELATION  OF  GOD  AND  MAN     175 

and,  indirectly,  on  the  part  which  each  factor  has 
in  this  meaning.  We  cannot,  however,  appeal  to 
the  meaning  except  as  we  are  inquiring  into  the 
"why,"  the  final  cause  of  the  course  of  events.  If 
we  want  to  get  at  the  "how,"  the  actual  nature  of 
the  uniformities,  we  must  look  away  from  the  world 
of  meaning,  and  so  from  the  conscious  human  self, 
and  have  regard  simply  to  what  the  course  of  events 
is.  If  we  find  the  uniformity  there,  the  laws  which 
we  detect  will  not  be  interfered  with  by  final  causes, 
or  by  considerations  that  have  to  do  with  our  own 
conscious  thoughts  and  purposes,  because  these  are 
just  the  things  from  which  we  have  abstracted.  Con- 
sciousness does  not  influence  the  course  of  events  by 
breaking  into  an  order  already  established,  but  by 
helping  determine  in  the  first  place  what  that  order 
shall  be.  We  may  call  this  preestablished  harmony 
if  we  will.  Better,  it  is  preexisting  harmony.  And 
if  we  have  not  the  right  to  appeal  to  the  existence  of 
harmony  in  the  world,  surely  as  philosophers  we 
are  in  a  bad  case. 

To  repeat,  then,  if  by  cause  we  mean  a  source  for 
the  understanding  of  things,  I  am  the  cause  —  a  part 
of  the  cause,  that  is  —  of  events  that  happen  in  the 
outer  world .  If  by  cause  we  mean  inclusion  within ,  or 
intrusion  into,  the  system  of  quantitative  relationships 
to  which  science  limits  its  use  of  the  word,  then  I  am 
not  a  cause  in  this  special  sense.  But  there  is  no 
contradiction  between  the  two  conceptions  ;  rather 
one  is  subordinate  to  and  the  expression  of  the  other. 


THE  NATURE   OF   GOD 

THERE  is  still  one  problem  a  religious-  philosophy 
needs  to  meet  which  has  been  in  sight  more  than 
once  in  the  preceding  discussion,  but  with  which 
we  have  not  yet  attempted  to  come  to  close  quarters. 
There  is  a  certain  group  of  attributes  which  almost 
uniformly  the  religious  consciousness,  at  least  in 
its  higher  development,  has  found  it  natural  to  assign 
to  the  conception  of  God.  God  is  infinite,  eternal, 
absolute,  all-powerful  and  all-knowing.  But  while 
natural,  these  attributes  are  clearly  going  to  cause 
difficulty  when  we  start  to  inquire  in  a  more  definite 
way  about  their  possibility  and  their  real  meaning. 
It  has  come,  indeed,  to  be  one  of  the  notable  charac- 
teristics of  modern  thinking  —  its  unwillingness  to 
talk  very  much  about  the  absolute  and  the  infinite. 
Nevertheless,  if  we  are  pretending  to  anything  like 
a  complete  philosophy,  there  are  questions  present 
here  which  cannot  be  altogether  ignored;  and  the 
vitality  which  the  ideas  possess  for  religion  would 
suggest  that  there  is  back  of  them  some  real  sig- 
nificance and  value.  Accordingly  we  may  turn  as 
briefly  as  we  may  to  the  problem  which  is  thus  raised, 
in  order  to  meet  thereby,  if  possible,  certain  further 
objections  to  the  theory  which  has  been  proposed. 
176 


THE   NATURE   OF   GOD  1 77 

There  are  various  difficulties  which  have  been  raised 
by  philosophers  about  the  conception  of  the  absolute. 
Perhaps  Mr.  Spencer's  'have  in  recent  times  had  the 
most  vogue.  The  burden  of  Mr.  Spencer's  objec- 
tion is  roughly  this :  We  think,  it  is  said,  always  and 
necessarily  irr  terms  of  relations.  Thinking  is  com- 
bining. Apart  from  the  possibility  of  comparison 
with  other  objects,  we  could  say  nothing  whatever 
about  a  thing.  Now  if  this  is  so,  absolute  reality 
is  shut  out  from  knowledge.  The  absolute  is  pre- 
cisely that  which  is  not  relative.  It  does  not  get  its 
content  by  relation  to  other  reality.  There  is  noth- 
ing to  which  the  absolute  can  be  compared,  and 
therefore  nothing  at  all  which  we  can  say  or  think 
about  it.  The  very  thing  which  thinking  presup- 
poses is  rendered  impossible. 

Before,  however,  we  can  hope  to  get  much  light 
upon  the  matter,  it  is  obviously  desirable  to  come 
to  an  understanding  of  what  we  are  to  mean  by  the 
terms  we  are  using.  It  does  not  need  much  scrutiny 
to  discover  that  a  good  deal  of  the  arguing  about  the 
matter  fails  to  do  this,  and  is  satisfied  to  assume, 
rather,  certain  popular  and  fluctuating  meanings  of 
the  terms  without  much  criticism.  It  may  be  taken 
for  granted  that  the  words  "absolute"  and  "  relative," 
" infinite"  and  "finite,"  do  mean  something,  that 
they  have  arisen  in  answer  to  some  real  need  of 
thought.  The  supposition  that  "absolute,"  for 
example,  stands  for  no  intelligible  idea  whatever, 
that  it  is  intellectually  mere  nonsense,  rests  upon  bad 

N 


178      RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

psychology.  Terms  are  not  invented  arbitrarily 
without  any  reason  for  it.  They  always  stand  for 
something  in  actual  experience  which  is  real,  although 
they  may  come  to  be  badly  misunderstood. 

What  service  for  our  concrete  thought,  then,  do 
the  ideas  in  question  perform  ?  The  answer  is  clearer 
if  we  turn  to  the  second  members  of  the  two  pairs  of 
correlates.  The  terms  "finite'*  and  "relative"  evi- 
dently stand  for  the  recognition  of  a  well-defined 
feature  of  experience.  This  is  the  fact,  namely,  that 
those  things  which  we  start  out  by  taking  as  inde- 
pendent wholes,  complete  and  self-existent,  we  very 
soon  come  to  find  out  are  nothing  of  the  sort.  Things 
of  the  outer  world  do  not  stand  still  in  eternal  com- 
posure and  steadfastness.  On  the  contrary  the  at- 
tempt to  think  them  in  this  isolated  and  finished 
way  speedily  brings  us  to  intellectual  and  practical 
confusion.  Things  are  all  the  time  shifting  and 
changing.  At  one  moment  they  are;  at  the  next 
they  may  have  passed  into  something  wholly  differ- 
ent in  form.  Even  if  we  take  a  thing  at  the  moment 
when  it  seems  to  be  persisting  unchanged,  we  soon 
find  that  a  complete  account  of  it  cannot  stop  short 
within  the  limits  of  its  own  apparent  boundaries. 
We  have  to  bring  in  other  things  and  compare  them 
with  it  in  order  to  throw  light  upon  the  thing  itself. 
We  have  to  find  its  causes  and  its  effects,  apart  from 
which  our  knowledge  of  it  would  confessedly  be 
very  partial  and  inadequate.  And  the  farther  we 
go  in  the  process,  the  clearer  it  becomes  that  there 


THE    NATURE  OF  GOD  1 79 

are  no  arbitrary  limits  which  separate  a  thing  off 
absolutely  from  other  things.  The  direction  of 
thought  is  always  toward  a  unity  more  and  more 
inclusive. 

Now  this  tendency  to  unify  facts  and  bring  them 
within  a  single  related  system  may  naturally  be  taken 
as  the  source  of  those  other  two  terms,  "infinite"  and 
"absolute,"  which  we  contrast  with  the  terms 
"finite"  and  "relative."  In  so  far  as  they  have  a 
legitimate  value  for  thought,  absolute  and  infinite 
would  seem  to  point  primarily  to  the  ideal  of  a 
unity  through  which  the  particular  finite  facts  shall 
lose  their  incompleteness,  and  be  grasped  together 
as  parts  of  a  self-contained  and  intelligible  whole. 
In  such  a  whole,  if  it  once  were  reached,  there  would 
be  no  longer  any  need  that  we  should  seek  for  further 
explanation.  It  would  be  self -explaining.  The  end- 
less regress  of  thought  would  be  checked  by  being 
brought  within  the  circle  of  some  sufficient  and  en- 
lightening principle.  Such  a  whole  would  be  statable 
in  terms  of  its  own  content,  and  would  not  need  a 
relation  to  anything  outside. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  is  an  ideal  which  never 
is  and  never  can  be  attained  in  human  knowledge. 
But  it  is  an  ideal  at  any  rate  which  actually  is  at 
work,  and  which  is  at  least  progressively  approxi- 
mated. It  is  only  through  the  acceptance  of  this 
ideal  of  unity  that  human  knowledge  advances. 
And  this  explains  the  difficulty,  the  impossibility, 
indeed,  of  rooting  out  the  concept  of  the  infinite 


l8o         RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION  OF   THE   WORLD 

and  absolute  from  our  consciousness.  But  the 
point  especially  to  be  noticed  at  present  is  this : 
Relative  and  absolute,  finite  and  infinite,  are  not 
separate  and  independent  facts.  They  are  neces- 
sarily implicated  each  in  the  other.  A  thing  is  finite 
only  as  it  is  partial,  and  so  as  it  stands  in  possible 
relation  to  a  larger  whole  which  completes  it.  It  is 
relative  only  in  so  far  as  it  forms  part  of  a  system  of 
related  terms.  In  all  thinking  there  is  the  double 
aspect  —  multiplicity  of  particular  facts  on  the  one 
hand,  unity  of  system  on  the  other.  Apart  from  the 
concrete  details  in  terms  of  the  finite  and  particular, 
the  unity  would  be  a  mere  blank.  Apart  from  the 
unity  of  the  system,  the  details  would  be  wholly 
separate  and  chaotic.  They  would  not  be  relative, 
or  related,  at  all.  Both  are  equally  necessary  aspects 
of  the  work  of  thought,  and  neither  has  for  pur- 
poses of  thought  any  existence  apart  from  the  other. 
It  is  by  attempting  this  unreal  separation  that  some 
at  least  of  the  difficulties  about  absolute  knowl- 
edge, for  example  those  on  which  Mr.  Spencer  most 
insists,  are  created.  If  we  take  the  ideal  of  the  unity 
of  knowledge  wholly  by  itself,  as  just  unity  without 
any  multiplicity  of  particular  facts  which  are  unified, 
as  just  absolute  without  regard  to  the  group  of  re- 
lated data  which  are  made  to  form  a  consistent 
whole,  then  no  doubt  such  an  absolute  is  unknowable. 
But  this  is  not  due  to  any  imperfection  of  the  human 
mind.  The  thing  is  incapable  of  being  known  in 
concrete  terms,  because  there  is  nothing  to  know. 


THE  NATURE   OF  GOD  l8l 

We  are  dealing  with  an  abstraction  which  cannot 
exist  by  itself,  and  therefore  it  is  no  wonder  we  fail 
to  make  a  universe  out  of  it  which  is  satisfactory  to 
thought.  What  we  want,  and  all  that  we  are  en- 
titled to  ask,  is  an  absolute  which  does  not  exclude 
from  its  limits  finite  things,  but  which  rather  includes 
them  as  parts  of  a  whole.  To  put  the  absolute  on 
one  side,  and  the  finite  on  another,  as  two  distinct 
realms  which  are  mutually  exclusive,  is  to  commit 
intellectual  suicide.  The  whole  purpose  of  thought 
is,  not  to  get  bare  unity  in  itself,  but  to  unify,  and  so 
explain,  the  particular  finite  facts  from  which  we 
start,  and  whose  finiteness  is  just  the  reason  we  are 
seeking  for  an  explanation.  A  unity,  or  absolute, 
which  fails  to  do  this,  fails  by  that  very  fact  to  be 
legitimate  thinking  or  a  true  philosophy.  It  leaves 
the  whole  mass  of  the  data  of  knowledge  hanging 
in  the  void.  At  the  same  time  it  takes  the  ideal  of 
their  unity,  abstracted  from  its  legitimate  purpose, 
and  sets  this  up  as  alone  truly  real;  and  then  it 
complains  that  we  cannot  know  anything  more  about 
this  reality.  Of  course  we  cannot.  To  say  any- 
thing more  about  it  we  should  have  to  bring  back 
the  particular  facts  which  form  its  content,  the 
unified  data  which  we  have  carefully  removed.  If 
I  were  to  abstract  the  quality  of  color  from  an  object, 
and  say  that  it  alone  of  all  the  qualities  was  real,  I 
could  not  afterwards  complain  if  I  found  myself 
unable  to  define  the  object  except  in  terms  of  color. 
So  if  from  the  work  of  thought  I  abstract  the  aspect 


1 82        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

of  unity,  and  forget  that  this  unity  only  appears  in  the 
act  of  unifying  a  group  of  related  facts,  it  of  course 
need  not  surprise  me  that  the  unity  has  no  further 
definable  characteristics.  I  have  deliberately  chosen 
to  exclude  all  other  characteristics,  and  I  have  my 
reward. 

The  fact,  then,  that  all  our  thinking  is  in  terms  of 
relations,  does  not  itself  make  it  impossible  that  we 
should  know  the  real.  An  attempt  to  think  the 
absolute  does  not  consist  in  ruling  out  relations.  It 
consists  rather  in  finding  a  unity  into  which  these 
relations  enter,  but  which  is  itself  complete  within 
itself  and  not  related  to  anything  beyond.  It  is  this 
end  toward  which  knowledge  is  ever  striving.  And 
so  it  may  fairly  be  claimed  that  the  effort  to  attain 
to  an  absolute  is  no  unreasonable,  arbitrary,  unmean- 
ing aim,  that  it  involves  no  leaving  behind  of  the  con- 
crete interests  of  human  experience  for  an  unreal  and 
transcendental  object.  It  is  but  the  completion  of 
the  ideal  of  knowledge,  the  desire,  natural  at  least, 
even  if  it  be  not  capable  of  satisfaction,  to  "see  life 
steadily  and  see  it  whole,"  with  a  wholeness  that 
shall  not  lead  to  an  endless  regress,  or  leave  us 
with  insoluble  riddles  to  puzzle  and  unsettle  us.  It 
is  the  desire  to  feel  at  home  in  the  universe,  to  have 
something  permanent  and  solid  on  which  to  rest 
emotionally  as  well  as  intellectually,  some  relief  from 
the  incessant  change  and  instability  which  surrounds 
us  in  the  world  of  appearances,  an  escape  from  the 
haunting  suspicion  that  our  knowledge  is  no  true 


THE   NATURE  OF   GOD  183 

knowledge  after  all,  nor  even  a  progress  toward  true 
knowledge,  but  only  a  practically  useful  makeshift 
likely  at  any  moment  to  be  reversed.  Chimerical 
again  this  end  may  be.  But  it  is  not  unmeaning  or 
artificial  so  long  as  the  impulse  to  know  remains 
a  part  of  human  nature. 

The  sort  of  unity  into  which  all  the  multitudinous 
facts  of  the  universe  can  be  thought  as  falling,  I  have 
tried  to  show  is  best  described  as  the  teleological 
unity  of  a  social  whole.  Of  course  this  is  only  a 
schema,  an  outline.  No  one  in  his  senses  would 
suppose  that  we  know  reality  in  detail  with  any 
approach  to  completeness.  Indeed,  the  practical 
use  which  knowledge  serves  for  us  as  human  beings 
—  as  a  guide  to  life  —  would  prevent  its  ever  being 
thus  finally  summed  up  and  completed.  But  it  is 
conceivable  that  in  such  a  general  conception  we 
should  have  what  in  its  large  features  adequately 
expresses  the  nature  of  the  real,  so  that  further 
experience  would  not  reverse  or  falsify  our  knowl- 
edge, but  only  fill  and  enrich  with  new  content  a 
fairly  constant  framework.  And  I  have  argued  that 
this  particular  conception  will,  in  point  of  fact,  find 
a  place  for  the  main  facts  of  experience,  and  will 
aid  us  in  solving  many  problems. 

But  now  so  far  we  have  failed  to  do  anything 
directly  toward  answering  the  question  with  which  we 
started,  the  question  as  to  the  possibility  of  applying 
these  terms  —  "infinite"  and  "absolute"  —  to  God, 
while  still  retaining  at  the  same  time  some  con- 


184        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

crete  understanding  of  his  nature.  In  the  special 
sense  of  being  identical  with  the  whole  of  reality, 
it  has  indeed  been  granted  that  God  is  not  absolute. 
But  nevertheless  the  definition  at  which  we  arrived 
may  prove  of  assistance.  In  fact,  it  seems  in  itself 
to  require  to  be  carried  farther  before  its  full  impli- 
cations are  satisfied.  For  the  concept  of  a  social 
whole  is  primarily  a  unity  for  knowledge.  It  does 
not  necessarily  mean  that  the  reality  has  for  itself 
the  realization  of  its  own  self -completeness.  Indeed, 
as  a  community  of  beings  it  cannot  as  a  whole  have 
this  realization.  Nevertheless  this  suggests  a  mean- 
ing that  we  can  give  to  the  " absoluteness "  of  God. 
Even  though  he  be  not  the  whole,  yet  if  his  experi- 
ence is  for  him  self-complete,  if  he  contains  within 
himself  the  eternal  realization  of  all  the  conditions 
that  help  to  give  his  life  its  meaning,  and  so  indirectly 
sums  up,  at  least  as  a  matter  of  knowledge,  the  entire 
universe  within  the  limits  of  his  consciousness,  then 
he  can  still  be  called  absolute  or  infinite  in  an  intel- 
ligible sense. 

And  such  an  absolute  would  seem  naturally  to  be 
called  for  by  the  needs  of  religious  feeling  and  of 
theory  alike.  Both  have  an  interest  in  defending 
for  the  conception  of  God  certain  infinite,  that  is, 
self-complete  and  perfect,  characteristics.  For  re- 
ligion God  is  the  ideal  of  perfect  felicity,  of  perfect 
attainment ;  he  is  the  guarantee  of  ultimate  harmony 
and  of  our  faith  in  the  rationality  and  goodness  of 
things,  because  nothing  in  the  end  lies  outside  the 


THE   NATURE  OF  GOD  185 

scope  of  his  purpose  and  his  knowledge.  For  if 
there  be  a  real  unity  to  the  world,  then  an  idealistic 
philosophy  at  least  would  have  a  strong  motive  for 
finding  this  unity  somewhere  realized  consciously. 
If  the  whole  universe  were  in  terms  of  what  we  call 
finite  beings,  if  it  were  a  patchwork  merely  of  parts 
here  and  parts  there  —  parts  which  never  focus  in 
any  comprehensive  centre,  —  then  any  intelligible 
understanding  of  its  unity  seems  hard  of  attainment. 
If  the  whole  truth  of  the  world  is  at  a  given  moment 
true  for  no  one,  in  what  does  its  truth  consist?  If 
the  purpose  which  rules  the  universe  exists  nowhere 
in  its  completeness,  if  in  terms  of  conscious  life  it  is 
created  outright,  is  a  new  and  unforeseen  result  from 
moment  to  moment,  how  understand  its  appearance 
in  this  fresh  development,  or  the  nature  of  its  prior 
existence?  A  purpose  whose  unfolding  comes  as 
a  surprise  to  all  sentient  beings  would  appear  to  be 
uninterpretable,  unless  we  change  in  some  unknown 
way  our  very  conception  of  what  purpose  is.  All 
this  need  the  idea  of  God  attempts  to  supply. 

But  now  the  question  is  about  the  concrete  pos- 
sibility of  such  a  conception.  Have  we  any  way  of 
making  it  real  and  positive  to  our  minds?  For  all 
content  we  can  assign  to  the  notion  comes  from  our 
knowledge  of  ourselves,  and  we  are  undeniably 
finite.  Is  not  the  very  idea  of  personality  infected 
with  limitation?  How  then  can  we  hope  to  trans- 
fer it  to  what  by  definition  is  absolute  and  infinite? 
Our  whole  life  is  a  gradual  development  in  knowl- 


1 86        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

edge  and  in  character ;  if  we  do  away  with  this,  is 
there  really  anything  left  ? 

I  have  already  considered  the  objection  that  be- 
cause personality  involves  a  social  relationship  to 
others,  it  is  thereby  unfitted  to  stand  for  a  description 
of  God.  If  this  relationship  enlarges  rather  than 
restricts  the  meaning  of  experience,  it  would  not  seem 
necessarily  to  lead  to  any  such  result.  But  to  meet 
the  problem  more  adequately  we  shall  need  to  turn 
briefly  to  the  conception  of  human  experience,  and 
ask  wherein  the  real  nature  of  this  consists,  for  only 
thus  shall  we  be  able  to  judge  whether  it  affords  us 
any  help  towards  that  of  which  we  are  in  search  — 
an  understanding  of  the  nature  of  God. 

Now  historically  this  question  has  taken  form 
largely  in  connection  with  a  special  fact.  This  is 
the  fact  that  there  are  three  main  aspects  of  experi- 
ence whose  relation  is  neither  practically  nor  theoreti- 
cally altogether  obvious.  Indeed,  the  intellectual, 
the  emotional,  and  the  active  or  willing  sides  of  life 
are  often  in  sharp  competition.  In  what  way  then 
—  so  we  may  formulate  this  preliminary  business — 
are  we  to  think  the  connection  of  these  various  expres- 
sions of  man's  nature  so  as  most  adequately  to 
sum  it  up  in  its  completeness  and  with  its  proper 
emphasis  ? 

In  the  past  there  has  been  for  obvious  reasons  a 
strong  tendency  among  philosophers  to  define  the 
conscious  life  primarily  in  terms  of  thinking,  or  of 
intellect.  This  does  constitute  the  most  character- 


THE  NATURE   OF  GOD  187 

istic  sort  of  experience  for  the  philosopher  himself, 
and  it  is  the  side  of  lif  e  which  it  is  easiest  to  examine 
and  describe.  Recently,  however,  the  supremacy 
of  thought  has  been  disputed,  and  disputed  more 
particularly  in  the  interests  of  what  has  usually 
been  called  will.  Will,  as  it  is  thus  used,  means 
simply  the  empirical  fact  that  we  are  beings  who 
are  fundamentally  active,  striving,  moving  toward 
ends.  There  has  already  been  occasion  to  utilize 
the  fact  that  this  is  what  is  presupposed  in  the  bio- 
logical conception  of  the  organism;  and  whatever 
its  limitations,  the  biological  conception  undoubtedly 
has  been  very  largely  influential  in  determining  our 
understanding  of  the  psychological  life.  And  its 
main  result  has  been  in  leading  us  to  see  that  both 
thought  and  feeling  can  get  an  explanation,  an  in- 
telligible setting,  by  being  related  to  the  fundamental 
life  activity.  The  explanation  may  not  be  final. 
But  at  least  it  seems  valid  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  it  has 
apparently  to  be  taken  as  a  starting-point  in  any 
final  estimate.  Thought,  from  the  biological  stand- 
point, cannot  possibly  be  regarded  as  an  end  in  itself, 
but  only  as  a  function  of  the  whole  life  process. 
This  process  is  essentially  one  of  activity,  and  origi- 
nally it  is  activity  in  the  most  literal  sense  —  bodily 
activity.  For  psychological  theory  the  original  da- 
tum is  the  organism  already  struggling  to  maintain 
and  express  itself.  It  is  from  this  that  the  life  of 
conscious  experience  is  slowly  differentiated.  It 
comes  into  being  through  the  heat  of  the  conflict. 


1 88         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

If  the  activity  of  the  organism  were  perfectly  habitual, 
it  would  go  on  forever  with  at  best  a  minimum  of 
consciousness— a  vague,  diffused  feeling,  perhaps, 
containing  in  itself  no  sharp  distinctions,  no  objec- 
tive reference,  no  rational  significance.  But  no  such 
unimpeded  action,  in  our  world  at  least,  is  possible. 
And  the  process  of  conscious  judgment  is  the  bridge 
which  carries  us  over  the  obstructions  our  life  ac- 
tivity is  constantly  running  up  against,  and  which 
adjusts  it  to  new  conditions.  Thought,  in  a  word, 
is  the  means  of  overcoming  obstacles  hi  the  way 
of  the  proper  functioning  of  life.  It  is  therefore 
primarily  practical  in  its  nature.  So  feeling,  again, 
would  seem  to  represent  in  some  way  the  immediate 
conscious  realization  of  the  success  or  failure  which 
is  attending  our  efforts  at  active  self-expression  —  a 
realization  which  serves  apparently  in  some  degree  to 
reenforce  or  inhibit  the  action  of  which  it  is  the 
accompaniment. 

To  this  statement,  however,  it  is  necessary  to  add 
at  once  an  important  qualification.  In  the  biological 
realm  there  is  not  simply  a  logical  subordination  of 
feeling  and  thought  to  will,  but  there  is  a  real  subor- 
dination as  well.  The  essence  of  the  thing  for  the 
animal  is  just  the  action  on  the  physical  side. 
Thought  and  feeling  are  merely  means  to  this  action, 
and,  except  for  the  need  of  them  as  means,  could 
be  dispensed  with.  So  soon  as  their  service  is  per- 
formed they  do  tend  to  sink  into  the  background. 
The  important  thing  for  the  animal  is,  for  example, 


THE   NATURE   OF  GOD  189 

to  get  and  devour  food,  not  to  enjoy  eating,  nor  to 
perform  the  intellectual  processes  necessary  to  find 
its  prey.  These  last  are  merely  incidental  to  the 
main  —  the  purely  physiological  —  end. 

But  with  man,  to  the  extent  to  which  he  becomes 
a  spiritual  being,  all  this  is  changed.  Biological 
activity  becomes  the  activity  of  conscious  and  sig- 
nificant experience.  And  the  essence  of  the  change 
is  this:  that  thought  and  feeling  are  no  longer  in- 
cidental to  mere  brute  action.  They  are  funda- 
mental and  essential  aspects  of  activity;  all  are 
bound  together  into  an  indivisible  unity.  Action, 
in  other  words,  has  changed  to  conduct.  It  is  no 
longer  enough  for  man  as  a  spiritual  being  to  get 
things  done.  They  must  be  done  with  a  conscious 
appreciation  of  their  meaning.  Knowledge  does  not 
lapse  when  the  preliminary  process  of  thought  or 
judgment  ends,  and  action  begins.  An  activity 
which  does  not  carry  along  with  it  insight  into  its 
conditions  and  end  is  no  longer  rational  action,  but 
mere  habit  or  instinct,  and  as  such  it  does  not  belong 
to  the  truly  spiritual  part  of  man's  experience.  So 
also  the  whole  activity  must  be  accompanied  by 
the  feeling  appreciation  of  its  value  as  an  essential 
part  of  it,  if  it  is  to  be  in  the  highest  sense  human. 
This  is  the  solid  basis  for  the  insistent  demand  that 
pleasure  or  happiness  should  be  regarded  as  the  end 
of  life.  As  a  protest  against  any  theory  which  tries 
to  make  the  feeling  of  satisfaction  separable  from 
the  idea  of  the  good,  the  insistence  is  quite  justified. 


1 90        RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

We  can  conceive  a  result,  indeed,  an  actual  end, 
which  contains  no  reference  to  feeling.  But  we 
cannot  conceive  a  good  end,  an  end  which  has  value, 
apart  from  the  inner  appreciation  of  value  in  feeling 
terms.  Will,  feeling,  knowing  or  insight,  are  all 
essential  to  the  conception  of  a  spiritual  or  truly 
human  act. 

Activity,  therefore,  which  can  serve  as  hi  any  sense 
an  ultimate  conception  for  philosophy,  will  differ 
from  the  biological  conception  of  activity  from  which 
we  started.  Both,  indeed,  are  based  upon  the  con- 
cept of  end.  But  for  an  idealistic  philosophy  physical 
activity  as  such  cannot  be  ultimate.  It  must  itself 
be  translated  into  terms  of  conscious  activity.  Some 
difficulty  has,  it  is  true,  been  found  with  this  notion 
of  conscious  activity.  And  indeed,  were  it  not  an 
actual  fact  of  experience,  we  might  find  it  paradoxical 
enough.  But  in  the  light  of  experience  we  may  not 
only  claim  that  there  are  no  fatal  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  its  recognition ;  it  is  hard  to  see  how  by  any 
possibility  we  could  get  ahead  at  all  if  we  did  not 
presuppose  it.  It  is  the  fundamental  aspect  of  all 
experience.  For  it  simply  represents  the  fact  that 
experience  is  teleological.  We  can  be  conscious 
of  an  end,  and  conscious  also  that  we  are  realizing 
this  end.  We  do  not  simply  have  one  state  of  con- 
sciousness following  another.  We  have  one  state 
of  consciousness  looking  forward  to  another,  its 
meaning  completed  only  as  the  other  is  attained; 
and  then  we  have  this  last  state  conscious  that  it  is 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  IQI 

the  completion  of  what  has  gone  before.  There  is 
no  question  of  a  special  force  by  which  ideas  operate. 
Force  is  itself  to  be  understood  in  terms  of  conscious 
experience.  All  that  we  mean  is  a  fundamental 
quality  of  the  process  of  conscious  experience  itself; 
the  binding  together  of  this  experience  in  a  conscious 
teleological  relationship,  the  sense  of  the  progressive 
attainment  of  an  end.  And  this  aspect  not  only  is 
real ;  it  is,  as  I  say,  fundamental.1 

1  Perhaps  a  word  more  may  be  said  about  the  metaphysical 
relation  between  the  activity  of  experience  as  an  immediate  con- 
scious fact,  and  the  physical  activity  of  the  body.  The  body  is  not 
what  we  call  ourselves  in  so  far  as  we  distinguish  ourselves  sharply 
from  other  things  in  point  of  existence.  The  body  is  a  part  of  the 
material  world.  In  the  most  direct  and  ultimate  sense  the  self 
is  the  conscious  self,  the  unity  of  conscious  experience.  But  since 
as  conscious  our  nature  represents  no  absolutely  independent  real- 
ity, but  is  implicated  in  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  since  in  a  special 
way  the  possibilities  of  conscious  life  and  conscious  cooperation  are 
centred  in  the  part  of  reality  which  we  call  the  body,  we  are  jus- 
tified in  saying  that  the  complete  self  is  soul  and  body.  And  in  part 
we  mean  by  this  that  every  conscious  activity  involves  also  and 
necessarily  a  cooperating  activity  in  reality  beyond,  on  account  of 
the  organic  connection  which  runs  through  the  universe  as  a  whole. 
It  cannot  exist  or  be  understood  by  itself.  This  is  metaphysically 
the  ground  of  the  fact,  which  we  discover  empirically  to  be  true, 
that  no  conscious  change  can  take  place  which  is  not  accompanied 
by  at  least  a  brain  change.  An  entirely  independent  consciousness 
would  lie  outside  the  related  system  of  selves  which  constitutes 
reality.  These  bodily  movements  are  what  we  call  physical  ac- 
tivity. Interpreted,  they  are,  of  course,  like  everything  else  that  is 
physical,  a  part  of  God's  life.  They  represent  the  aspects  of  this 
ultimate  experience  which  are  most  closely  connected  with  our 
own  conscious  existence.  And  this  physical  side  to  our  existence 
is  demanded,  once  more,  by  the  ultimate  nature  of  the  constitution 


1 92         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

For  the  merely  physical  and  biological  end  with 
which  we  started,  therefore,  we  have  to  substitute 
this  activity  of  conscious  experience.  And  it  has 
already  been  said  that  this  does  not  reach  its  fullest 
expression  in  the  experience  of  thinking.  The  think- 
ing process  as  such  is  incidental  to  the  process  of 
active  realization,  and  intended  primarily  to  lead  up 
to  it  and  make  it  possible.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that 
thought  also  is  a  phase  of  active  experience,  and  may 
sometimes  become  an  end  in  itself.  But  typically 
it  looks  beyond  itself.  It  issues  in  doing,  or  conduct 
of  a  more  overt  sort.  Conduct  it  is,  not  thinking, 
which  psychologically  and  ethically  is  ultimate. 

of  reality,  according  to  which  no  self  lives  unto  itself,  but  each  has 
its  life  in  cooperation.  Every  conscious  act  whatsoever,  then, 
involves  the  reaction  of  at  least  God's  experience.  Stated  empiri- 
cally, even  thought  involves  brain  changes. 

But  it  only  is  with  God  that  we  stand  in  this  immediate  con- 
nection. With  other  selves  the  connection  is  indirect,  through 
God.  We  react  through  body  on  body,  not  directly  mind  upon 
mind.  And  it  is  because  the  social  relationships  which  constitute 
our  nature  are  also  with  these  human  selves,  that  the  final  state- 
ment of  life  must  be  in  terms  not  simply  of  physical  activity,  but  of 
overt  physical  action.  By  mere  thought  we  might  enter  into  rela- 
tion to  God.  But  it  takes  the  outer  movements  of  the  body  to  co- 
operate with  our  fellow-men.  And  since  the  true  statement  of  life 
is  complete,  not  partial,  cooperation,  this  is  essential  to  the  goal  of 
conduct.  Even  God  cannot  be  truly  known  apart  from  the  world 
of  men.  A  religion  which  is  satisfied  with  mere  inward  aspiration 
and  devotion  is  no  true  religion.  It  must  issue  as  well  in  conduct ; 
and  except  as  it  does  issue  in  conduct  its  own  inner  meaning  and 
content  also  are  eviscerated.  It  is  the  necessary  consequence  of 
the  unity  of  the  social  world  that  we  neither  can  know  our  fellow- 
men  truly  apart  from  God,  nor  God  apart  from  our  fellow-men. 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  193 

But  now  it  is  just  the  limitations  which  attend  the 
thinking  process  that  are  most  typical  of  the  defects 
of  human  experience  —  defects  which  the  religious 
consciousness  hesitates  to  attribute  to  God.  The 
thinking  activity  as  such  is  by  its  very  nature  the 
mark  of  a  limited  experience.  We  think  only  to 
overcome  difficulties.  And  therefore  to  a  self -com- 
plete experience  to  which  difficulties  did  not  present 
themselves,  a  being  who  summed  up  consciously 
and  eternally  in  his  own  life  all  existing  conditions, 
the  necessity  of  having  to  think  would  never  come. 
Before,  then,  we  deny  our  ability  to  conceive  an  ab- 
solute experience  by  reason  of  the  incompleteness 
of  our  own,  we  should  consider  again  that  even  for 
us  the  processes  of  the  intellect  —  the  special  mark  of 
felt  incompleteness  —  are  not  final,  but  that  normally 
they  lead  to  a  type  of  experience  less  infected  with 
relativity  and  partial  attainment,  with  a  more  in- 
timate sense  of  organic  wholeness,  and  a  greater 
immediacy  of  satisfaction.  A  large  portion  of  our 
lives  is  indeed  lived  in  this  realm  of  incompletion. 
But  continually  also  we  are  passing,  even  though  it 
be  to  dwell  there  only  for  a  moment,  into  the  higher 
world  where  effort  becomes  fulfilment,  intelligent 
preparation  issues  in  some  measure  of  accomplish- 
ment, discursive  thought  gives  place  to  direct  insight, 
and  the  paler  and  thinner  reality  of  the  merely  men- 
tal life  deepens  to  the  full  sense  of  living  and  of  action. 
Those  occasional  moments  when  we  feel  ourselves 
under  "  inspiration,"  as  opposed  to  a  more  plodding 


194        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF   THE  WORLD 

and  laborious  achievement,  are  the  moments  when 
we  reach  our  highest  possibilities  in  this  direction. 
Such  an  experience  is  characterized  by  the  sense  of 
being  active,  of  doing  something.  But  at  the  same 
time  it  is  saturated  through  and  through  with  an 
insight  into  meaning.  For  rationality  to  be  present 
we  do  not  have  to  be  engaged  in  thinking  or  reason- 
ing. Without  the  need  of  setting  end  over  against 
means  as  something  to  be  attained  in  a  way  not  yet 
altogether  clear,  and  therefore  to  be  discovered  by 
thought,  an  experience  may  in  the  very  process  of 
attaining  an  end  be  perfectly  conscious  of  all  that 
it  means  or  involves,  may  feel  the  whole  act  by  an 
immediate  intuition  in  each  of  its  parts.  And  this 
insight  may  involve  not  simply  a  perception  of  the 
relations  within  the  experience  itself,  but  it  may 
involve  knowledge,  also,  in  the  sense  of  a  reference 
to  other  realities  which  are  presupposed  in  its  mean- 
ing. Social  experience,  again,  would  lose  much 
of  its  worth  did  it  not  suppose  the  real  existence 
of  persons  whose  cooperation  makes  possible  my 
own  inner  appreciation  of  the  social  act ;  and  this 
reference  beyond  the  immediate  experience  itself 
may  also  be  separated  from  the  thinking  process  in 
its  narrower  sense  —  the  process  of  coming  to  know, 
—  and  may  continue  after  this  has  fulfilled  its  pur- 
pose. And,  finally,  our  activity  is  felt  to  be  worth 
while  in  itself,  and  so  is  accompanied  by  the  inner 
realization  of  value.  For  purpose,  in  the  sense  of 
realized  meaning,  need  not  carry  with  it  the  implica- 


THE  NATURE  OF   GOD  195 

tion  of  something  partial  and  incomplete,  of  some- 
thing not  yet  attained  but  only  aimed  at.  It  may 
be  divorced  from  the  notion  of  want  and  lack  of 
attainment,  of  mere  aspiration  and  striving.  To 
free  ourselves  from  the  superstition  that  an  end  looks 
always  beyond  the  present  act,  that  means  and  end 
are  separate  and  distinct,  and  to  be  able  to  find  the 
doing  of  things  from  moment  to  moment  an  end  in 
itself,  carrying  the  sense  of  its  own  significance,  is 
indeed  a  large  element  in  the  wisdom  of  life,  without 
which  life's  whole  satisfaction  is  continually  put  off 
and  sacrificed. 

There  is  a  familiar  human  experience  which  will 
perhaps  help  us  to  realize  a  little  more  concretely 
what  the  possibilities  are  of  this  sort  of  absolute- 
ness which  we  are  trying  to  grasp.  In  the  aesthetic 
experience  we  get  some  of  the  qualities  that  we  are 
looking  for  in  a  peculiarly  direct  and  luminous 
way.  In  such  an  experience  meaning  reaches  us  as 
an  immediate  fact  of  feeling.  We  do  not  have  to 
reason  out  and  argue  to  ourselves  about  the  matter; 
if  we  do  this,  the  true  aesthetic  enjoyment  is 
necessarily  postponed.  The  relationships  which 
constitute  the  significance  of  the  work  of  art  are 
there,  and  on  occasion  we  can  describe  them  and 
render  them  explicit.  But  while  we  are  in  the 
mood  of  aesthetic  appreciation,  they  come  to  us 
simply  as  added  sources  of  enjoyment  in  an  organic 
experience;  they  flash  upon  us  as  an  immediate 
whole  whose  understanding  we  do  not  need  to  ap- 


196         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

proach  gradually,  build  up  step  by  step  through 
discursive  thought.  And  the  experience  is  absolute, 
too,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  self -complete,  independent 
of  all  beside.  To  the  extent,  indeed,  to  which  dis- 
satisfaction and  relativity  enter  in,  the  work  of  art 
has  failed  of  its  ideal  aim ;  for  the  moment  we  are 
sunk  in  what  is  a  little  world  by  itself,  rounded, 
harmonious,  wholly  satisfying. 

I  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  in  the  experience  of 
aesthetic  appreciation  we  shall  find  all  we  need  for 
the  interpretation  of  the  nature  of  God's  life.  Its 
character  is  too  essentially  passive  and  contempla- 
tive to  serve  completely  such  a  purpose;  its  mean- 
ing looks  too  wholly  to  the  past.  The  more  active 
side  of  the  aesthetic  life,  the  ideal  moment  of  artis- 
tic creation,  in  which,  along  with  insight,  apprecia- 
tion, the  flashing  of  a  significant  whole  upon  the  inner 
eye,  there  is  combined  the  sense  that  we  are  achiev- 
ing also,  and  by  our  act  are  bringing  this  world  of 
beauty  into  existence  —  such  a  moment  might  stand 
more  adequately  for  the  felicity  of  the  divine  experi- 
ence. In  this,  too,  there  is  one  notable  lack.  For 
the  work  of  art  is  self-centred,  it  involves  directly 
no  social  interplay.  If  now  we  can  introduce  this 
last  requirement,  with  the  emotional  sense  of  love  or 
fellowship  which  it  involves,  and  can  make  the  social 
deed  itself  a  work  of  art,  a  creation  whose  material 
is  not  simply  the  representation  of  reality,  but  the 
actual  stuff  of  human  intercourse,  which  is  not 
merely  true  of  life,  but  is  life,  —  and  this  represents 


THE   NATURE   OF   GOD  1 97 

for  us  a  real  possibility, — we  shall  have  an  experience 
which  in  a  perfectly  genuine  sense,  and  a  sense  em- 
pirically true  and  verifiable,  we  may  call  absolute. 
Of  course  in  our  experience  such  an  activity  is 
never  wholly  attained  for  any  length  of  time  together. 
We  have  continually  to  be  breaking  in  upon  the  course 
of  our  work  to  direct  attention  to  the  details,  by  rea- 
son of  our  ignorance  of  the  conditions,  and  of  the 
means  at  our  disposal.  And  if  we  do  so  master  the 
conditions  as  to  be  able  to  work  without  recourse 
to  the  specifically  intellectual  process,  our  activity 
tends  at  once  to  become  automatic  and  mechanical, 
and  clear  consciousness  to  lapse.  But  the  hint  of  what 
a  perfect  experience  may  be  like  is  there  neverthe- 
less. And  though,  of  course,  we  cannot  realize  with 
any  degree  of  completeness  the  content  of  God's 
life,  yet  it  does  not  seem  out  of  the  question  thus  to 
conceive  its  general  character  and  possibility.  If 
we  suppose  a  being  into  whose  conscious  life  there 
enter  all  the  conditions  of  which  his  action  has  to 
take  account,  in  whom  all  reality  is  represented  im- 
mediately so  that  he  does  not  have  to  "stop  and 
think,"  suspend  accomplishment  until  by  a  mental 
process  he  has  worked  out  the  means,  to  such  a  being 
the  full  realization  of  life  which  comes  to  us  only  in 
occasional  pulses  would  be  an  eternal  possession. 
Instead  of  a  string  of  more  or  less  disconnected  acts 
in  the  stream  of  time,  his  experience  would  be  one 
of  complete  actuality,  fulfilled  meaning,  perfect  and 
eternal  realization. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM 

THERE  are  two  historic  problems  in  particular 
which  are  bound  up  closely  with  any  attempt  at  a 
religious  philosophy,  and  with  reference  to  which 
a  theory  such  as  has  been  sketched  in  the  preceding 
pages  will  need  to  define  itself.  These  are  the  prob- 
lems of  human  freedom,  and  of  the  existence  of  evil. 
In  the  case  of  both  of  them  it  is  possible  to  distin- 
guish two  sides  —  the  practical,  and  what  may  be 
called  the  metaphysical  side.  Thus,  whether  one 
be  a  technical  philosopher  or  not,  and  whatever  his 
particular  system  of  philosophy  may  be,  as  a  matter 
of  mere  practical  wisdom  he  must  needs  adopt  in 
his  plan  of  life  some  more  or  less  distinct  position 
with  reference  to  the  fact  of  evil;  and  his  conduct 
is  bound  to  imply  certain  —  perhaps  unconscious 
—  assumptions  as  to  his  possession  or  lack  of  posses- 
sion of  freedom  to  act.  He  may,  for  example,  be 
a  fatalist  in  his  attitude ;  or  he  may,  on  the  contrary, 
have  the  superb  consciousness  of  power,  of  capacity 
for  bringing  to  pass  whatever  he  may  set  himself 
to  do,  which  commonly  has  characterized  the  men 
of  great  achievement  in  active  life.  Evil  may  to  him 
be  a  fact  to  be  ignored  and  set  in  the  background ; 
it  may  tinge  his  whole  life  with  sombreness  and 
198 


THE  PROBLEM  OF   FREEDOM  1 99 

bitterness,  and  make  it  a  constant  and  strenuous 
conflict  with  the  powers  of  darkness ;  or  again  it  may 
call  to  life  the  lust  and  joy  of  battle,  and  by  afford- 
ing a  field  for  effort  and  victory  may  minister  to  the 
sense  of  abounding  life  and  reality. 

Now  this  question  of  the  practical  attitude  to  be 
adopted,  which  is  without  doubt  a  primary  and  all- 
important  one,  has  also  come  within  recent  times  to 
be  very  widely  regarded  as  the  only  one  possible. 
Of  course  any  one  who  holds  that  philosophy  is 
concerned  simply  with  the  adjusting  of  experience, 
and  that  problems  which  concern  the  setting  of  this 
experience  in  a  wider  universe  of  ultimate  reality 
have  no  meaning,  is  bound  to  take  such  a  position. 
For  him,  accordingly,  the  so-called  metaphysics  of 
evil  or  of  freedom,  which  has  caused  so  great  a  stir 
in  the  past  history  of  thought,  represents  a  mere  waste 
of  ingenuity.  In  dealing  with  such  problems  the 
philosopher  has  been  as  one  beating  the  air.  All 
that  a  thinker  who  understands  himself  will  attempt 
to  do  is  to  criticise  the  part  which  these  concepts 
play  in  experience,  and  show  what  attitude  toward 
them  is  dictated  by  a  sound  practical  wisdom.  Un- 
doubtedly this  lessens  the  difficulty  of  the  philoso- 
pher's task  materially.  But  if  one  is  unable  to 
subscribe  to  such  a  limitation  of  the  field  of  thought, 
he  cannot  well  avoid  the  further  necessity  of  relating 
this  practical  attitude  which  he  adopts  to  his  final 
theory  of  reality,  and  then  the  need  of  metaphysics 
will  inevitably  arise.  It  is  true  that  the  practical  side 


200        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

is  the  more  fundamental  one.  No  ultimate  theory 
is  of  value  which  does  not  spring  from  an  understand- 
ing of  the  practical  meaning  of  the  problem,  and  serve 
to  supply  this  with  a  foundation.  But  nevertheless 
the  further  and  more  ultimate  inquiry  cannot  logi- 
cally be  avoided. 

In  the  present  chapter,  therefore,  I  shall  have  to 
consider  the  so-called  freedom  of  the  will.  And  the 
first  step  will  be  to  determine  what  the  word  "free- 
dom" means,  or  ought  to.  mean.  There  are  some 
dangers  at  least  which  one  is  likely  to  avoid  if  he 
can  make  quite  sure  what  it  is  about  which  he  is 
talking.  The  failure  to  do  this  is  undoubtedly 
responsible  for  no  small  part  of  the  difficulties  which 
have  beset  the  question.  And,  in  the  first  place, 
freedom  may  mean  simply  the  absence  of  external 
constraint.  If  some  one  takes  my  hand  and  by 
sheer  brute  force  compels  me  to  strike  a  bystander, 
no  one  would  pretend  that  this  is  a  free  act.  Or  if 
I  am  confined  in  chains,  there  is  an  obvious  sense  in 
which  I  am  not  free.  There  are  certain  things 
which  I  should  like  to  do,  and  I  am  forcibly  pre- 
vented from  doing  them  by  circumstances  which 
lie  beyond  my  own  power  of  control. 

But  this,  if  it  stops  here,  is  likely  to  be  ambiguous. 
Even  in  such  situations  as  these  there  is  an  intelli- 
gible sense  in  which  I  may  still  be  called  free.  My 
act  is  constrained.  My  bodily  movements  are  fet- 
tered. But  in  the  citadel  of  my  thoughts  or  of  my 
will  I  may  still  be  a  free  man.  Such  was  the  free- 


THE  PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM  2OI 

dom  of  the  Stoic  sages  —  the  freedom  of  the  strong 
man  undismayed  by  anything  that  nature  or  men 
can  do  to  him;  and  most  certainly  it  has  at  least 
a  relative  truth.  If  we  follow,  then,  the  suggestion 
which  it  contains,  it  would  seem  possible  to  make  a 
distinction  of  some  sort  between  the  free  act  and  the 
morally  free  man.  An  act  may  be  provisionally 
defined  as  free,  once  more,  when  it  represents  our 
own  desire,  and  is  not  the  product  of  constraint. 
But  in  the  conception  of  the  free  will,  the  free  man, 
there  is  something  deeper  involved  which  this  de- 
scription fails  to  cover.  For  a  real  and  substantial 
freedom  the  absence  of  constraint  is  indeed  nor- 
mally a  necessary  part  or  preparation.  Unless  I 
have  in  general  liberty  to  direct  my  own  movements, 
ethical  freedom  is  distinctly  hampered,  if  it  is  not  put 
out  of  the  question  altogether.  But  still  I  am  not 
in  the  ethical  sense  free  just  because  my  movements 
are  not  directed  from  the  outside. 

What,  then,  is  the  nature  of  the  morally  free  act, 
the  act  of  the  morally  free  person,  as  distinguished 
from  the  act  that  is  only  physically  or  psychologi- 
cally free  in  the  sense  that  it  springs  from  impulses 
that  lie  within  ourselves  and  is  not  hampered  from 
the  outside?  We  recognize  that  the  distinction  is 
one  which  we  actually  draw.  There  is  a  sense  in 
which  the  animal  when  under  the  spur  of  hunger  it 
seizes  its  prey  is  free.  Its  nature  prompts  it  to  do 
a  certain  thing,  and  in  acting  upon  its  nature  it  is 
acting  without  external  constraint.  So  the  child 


202         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF   THE    WORLD 

who,  remembering  a  former  pleasant  taste,  grasps 
for  a  lump  of  sugar,  is  free  in  his  act.  He  is  not 
forced  to  it  from  the  outside,  and  there  is  nothing 
to  restrain  him.  In  the  same  way  the  man  who  in 
a  fit  of  anger  strikes  and  kills  his  fellow,  or  the 
drunkard  who  yields  to  the  temptation  to  indulge 
his  diseased  appetite,  is  acting  freely.  It  is  his 
own  nature  which  prompts  him  to  the  act,  not  an 
external  force  driving  him  from  without. 

And  yet  there  is  another  sense  in  which  it  would 
be  generally  agreed  that  these  acts  are  not  what  we 
mean  by  moral  freedom.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we 
do  use  this  conception  of  the  morally  free  act  to 
make  a  distinction  between  acts  which  would  be 
equally  free  according  to  the  preceding  definition. 
We  say  that  a  man  is  free  in  some  sense  in  which 
the  animal  is  not,  in  some  sense  in  which  the  child 
is  not.  We  say  that  one  man  is  morally  freer  than 
another,  though  each  may  be  alike  unconstrained, 
and  be  doing  what  he  himself  chooses  to  do.  What 
is  the  meaning  we  intend  to  convey  by  such  state- 
ments as  these? 

If  we  approach  the  matter  from  the  practical  side, 
we  may  easily  distinguish  a  somewhat  definite  mean- 
ing. The  definition  of  freedom  implied  so  far  has 
been  in  terms  of  the  ability  of  a  man  to  do  what  he 
wants  to  do ;  and  so  far  as  it  goes,  this  would  seem 
to  be  on  the  right  track.  Freedom  must  be  with 
reference  to  the  attainment  of  an  end ;  and  not  an 
end  only,  but  my  end.  And  to  live  out  that  which 


THE    PROBLEM  OF   FREEDOM  203 

it  is  one's  nature  to  be  is  merely  another  expression 
of  the  end  of  being.  But  now,  on  the  other  hand, 
moral  slavery  is  also  in  the  deepest  sense  just  a 
slavery  to  oneself.  The  ability  to  do  what  we  please 
not  only  does  not  guarantee  freedom  in  the  moral 
sense;  it  may  be  the  very  condition  of  the  lack  of 
moral  freedom.  Why  is  the  child  not  morally  free 
as  the  man  may  be  free?  Not  merely  because  its 
actions  are  more  circumscribed  by  limitations  of 
strength  and  by  environment.  Its  limitations  may 
even  be  a  means  to  freedom  rather  than  a  bar  to  it. 
Morally  that  child  is 'not  most  free  who  is  most 
unrestrained.  It  is  not  to  hamper  the  child  that  the 
parent  surrounds  it  with  certain  safeguards,  checks 
tendencies  in  certain  directions,  but  rather  in  the 
interests  of  true  liberty.  Outer  slavery  may  be  con- 
sistent with  moral  freedom.  Slavery  to  oneself,  to 
one's  own  whims  and  impulses,  is,  morally  speaking, 
slavery  complete  and  entire,  within  which  no  room 
for  real  liberty  exists. 

Freedom,  then,  it  seems,  is  the  ability  to  live  out 
one's  impulses ;  slavery  —  moral  slavery  —  the  sub- 
jection to  one's  impulses.  The  reconciliation  of  the 
two  statements  is,  of  course,  on  the  surface.  It  is 
the  difference  between  the  satisfaction  of  temporary, 
trivial  interests,  and  those  which  are  permanent  and 
comprehensive;  between  complete  self-expression, 
and  such  partial  satisfaction  as  will  in  the  end  prove 
a  bar  to  the  fulfilling  of  other  sides  of  our  nature 
which  are  more  weighty  and  enduring.  Why  are 


204        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF   THE   WORLD 

the  animal  and  the  child  not  completely  free  ?  Be- 
cause they  are  subject  to  the  imperious,  unreflecting 
domination  of  individual  and  momentary  impulses. 
They  can  take  no  krge  view  of  life.  They  cannot 
look  before  and  after,  relating  these  desires  to  the  more 
permanent  interests  in  which  they  play  only  a  part, 
and  often  a  minor  part.  The  act  is  subject  to  their 
impulses,  and  not  to  themselves.  For  the  true  self 
takes  in  our  whole  of  life  and  our  whole  nature.  It 
is  the  system  of  impulses,  many  of  which  at  any  given 
moment  must  needs  be  latent.  And  yet  these  latent 
sides  of  our  nature  ought  to  be  regarded.  Other- 
wise our  hasty,  partial  self-expression  may  be,  indeed 
is  like  to  be,  prejudicial  to  our  larger  interests  in 
terms  of  the  self  which  is  more  than  any  one  impulse 
or  group  of  impulses.  So  the  man  who  has  not 
learned  self-control,  the  drunkard  for  example,  is 
a  slave.  He  is  a  slave,  not  because  the  motive  force 
of  his  action  lies  outside  himself.  It  is  a  part  of  his 
own  nature.  But  it  is  only  a  part,  and  a  part  rela- 
tively unimportant,  which  yet  has  usurped  despotic 
power,  and  by  so  doing  has  disorganized  the  whole 
system  of  life  and  its  activities.  And  not  only  the 
weak  man,  but  the  bad  man,  is  a  slave.  He  has 
chosen  to  develop  a  part  of  himself  which  involves 
the  stunting  of  that  in  him  which  is  most  truly 
and  representatively  human. 

The  definition  of  moral  freedom,  then,  to  put  it 
abstractly,  would  amount  to  this:  it  is  the  possi- 
bility of  attaining  to  a  full  and  harmonious  self- 


THE    PROBLEM  OF   FREEDOM 

expression,  of  giving  play  to  the  complex  system  of 
desires  and  impulses  which  constitute  our  nature 
in  such  a  way  that  each  desire  shall  get  the  degree 
of  satisfaction,  and  only  that  degree,  which  is  de- 
manded by  the  whole  truly  human  self  of  which  it 
forms  a  part.  Whenever  for  any  reason  we  fall 
short  of  this  possibility,  we  fall  short  of  freedom. 
The  restraint  may  come  from  the  outside,  or  it 
may  come  from  within.  When  any  partial  or  tem- 
porary side  of  our  nature  takes  the  bit  in  its  teeth, 
when  it  looks  upon  its  own  gratification  as  an  ulti- 
mate end,  then  we  are  enslaved,  not  to  our  real  selves 
indeed,  but  to  a  partial  and  blind  craving  whose  very 
condemnation  is  that  it  has  got  outside  the  limits 
within  which  alone  it  truly  represents"  our  self.  Ac- 
cordingly the  very  common  notion  of  liberty  as  the 
ability  to  do  what  we  like  is  so  far  from  the  mark 
that  it  may  even  mean  the  deepest  perversion  of 
freedom.  If  what  we  like  happens  to  be  the  unes- 
sential, trivial,  ephemeral  part  of  ourselves,  it  is  only 
another  expression  for  slavery.  Far  from  its  being 
true  that  he  is  most  completely  free  who  is  farthest 
removed  from  the  restraints  of  society  and  the  state, 
the  opposite  is  the  case.  The  responsibilities  which 
family  ties,  social  demands,  political  duties,  lay  upon 
us,  instead  of  being  in  any  normal  society  checks 
upon  freedom,  are  the  necessary  conditions  of  its 
attainment.  Only  under  these  circumstances  do 
we  find  the  material  for  self-expression,  as  well  as 
get  the  proper  motives  for  a  healthy  subordination 


206         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE    WORLD 

of  ends.  The  savage  is  likely  to  be  of  all  men  the 
farthest  from  freedom,  because  his  life  gives  least 
opportunity  for  the  carrying  on  of  those  activities 
in  which  man  is  most  truly  himself.  To  complain 
of  the  aspect  of  necessity  which  is  present  in  freedom 
is  as  if  the  artist  should  complain  because  he  is  com- 
pelled to  shape  his  actions  by  the  canons  of  aesthetic 
beauty,  instead  of  being  allowed  to  wander  at  his 
own  sweet  will  and  follow  out  every  whim  that  sug- 
gests itself.  He  may  do  the  latter,  but  he  ceases 
thereby  to  be  an  artist. 

Now  that  which  makes  possible  such  a  harmon- 
ized expression  of  the  self  is,  as  already  has  been 
implied,  the  rational  nature  of  man.  It  is  the  posses- 
sion of  reason  which  makes  man  a  morally  free  crea- 
ture as  the  animal  is  not  and  cannot  be.  Reason  is 
liberation  from  the  dominance  of  the  impulses  and 
passions,  because  it  means  the  postponing  of  their 
satisfaction  until  we  have  had  a  chance  to  see  whether 
they  actually  do  represent  our  real  selves  or  not; 
whether  we  in  the  fulness  of  our  nature  really  want 
the  thing  that  momentarily  we  think  we  want,  or 
whether  this  may  not  rather  be  obnoxious  to  our  real 
and  permanent  will.  This  supplanting  of  imme- 
diate, unthinking  action  by  a  period  of  deliberation 
is  the  essence  of  reason.  The  strong  instinct  to  act 
is  checked.  Straightway  there  begin  to  throng  into 
the  mind  the  consequences  our  act  may  have.  Some 
of  these  consequences  may  not,  probably  will  not, 
prove  altogether'  attractive  to  us.  Other  things 


THE   PROBLEM  OF   FREEDOM  207 

we  should  like  to  do  will  occur  to  us  with  which  the 
act  we  are  contemplating  is  likely  to  interfere.  The 
desires  which  these  represent  will  also  assert  them- 
selves and  demand  their  rights.  Accordingly,  if 
the  deliberation  is  full  and  thorough,  we  shall  end  by 
setting  the  proposed  satisfaction  in  something  like 
its  proper  place  in  the  system  of  our  lives.  We  shall 
discover  our  real  desire,  which  may  prove  to  be  wholly 
different  from  what  at  first  we  took  to  be  our  desire. 
One  thing  more  can  thus  be  added  to  the  definition 
of  moral  freedom.  The  free  act  is  always  one 
which  proceeds  from  a  rational  insight,  which  is  done 
with  a  conscious  recognition  of  what  its  results  are 
going  to  be. 

But  now  it  seems  to  be  the  natural  consequence  of 
this  conception  of  freedom  that  our  acts  are  deter- 
mined. They  are  determined,  though  not  of  course 
by  outer  things.  This  last  is  the  essence  of  fatalism 
—  that  things  are  bound  to  happen  no  matter  what 
we  want  and  in  spite  of  all  that  we  can  do.  Such 
fatalism,  which  denies  to  us  as  rational  beings  any 
determining  voice  in  the  situation,  is  so  obviously 
out  of  harmony  with  the  facts  that  it  is  hard  to  see 
how  any  healthy-minded  man  can  rest  satisfied  with 
it.  It  is  we  who  in  large  measure  shape  our  acts. 
But  still  our  acts  are  shaped,  are  determined,  by  what 
we  are.  That  which  we  do  is  always  the  outcome 
of  our  nature  as  it  asserts  itself  at  the  given  moment 
under  the  particular  circumstances  of  the  situation. 
Given  the  sort  of  man  I  am  and  the  situation  in 


208         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

which  I  find  myself  placed,  and  no  other  out- 
come would  have  been  conceivable.  One  who  really 
knew  all  the  conditions  could  have  foreseen  with 
entire  inevitableness  what  the  act  would  be. 

Now  here  at  last  we  come  into  conflict  with  an- 
other notion  of  freedom ;  we  are  in  sight  of  the  main 
point  around  which  the  metaphysical  controversy 
about  free  will  has  raged.  For  it  is  often  main- 
tained that  freedom  consists  just  in  the  lack  of  any 
determination  whatever.  The  free  act  is  therefore 
the  act  which  might  equally  have  been  done  or 
omitted.  The  contention  for  this  so-called  "liberty 
of  indifference"  is  identified  with  the  thesis  that  when 
we  are  at  the  psychological  moment  of  choice  be- 
tween two  opposing  lines  of  conduct,  there  is  a  real 
possibility  of  our  choosing  either.  There  is  no  in- 
evitableness in  the  actual  decision.  It  is  necessary 
to  look  more  closely  at  what  this  implies. 

And  first  as  to  the  psychology  of  the  matter.  What 
are  we  to  say  of  the  reason  for  any  given  choice? 
Here  are  desires  pulling  us  in  the  one  direction  and 
the  other.  But  by  hypothesis,  since  both  acts  are 
equally  possible,  the  decision  cannot  be  induced  by 
either  of  the  contending  forces  or  groups  of  forces. 
Is  then  the  decision  simply  due  to  chance  ?  Is  there 
an  entire  absence  of  causality,  of  rational  connection, 
in  the  result?  Of  course  the  advocate  of  indeter- 
minism  hardly  likes  to  say  this.  No,  he  declares, 
there  is  a  cause,  and  that  cause  is  just  the  free  will. 
It  is  the  will  which  exists  independent  of  our  warring 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  2OQ 

impulses,  and  which  by  its  unconstrained  fiat  throws 
the  weight  of  its  influence  in  the  one  scale  or  the  other. 
Now  what  one  has  to  ask  is  this :  Is  such  an  idea  of 
will  conceivable?  Does  it  not  actually  land  us  in 
the  position  already  suggested,  namely,  that  the 
choice  is  absolutely  a  matter  of  chance  with  no 
intelligible  cause? 

For  how,  it  may  be  asked,  does  this  supposed  free 
will  act?  In  more  definite  terms,  does  it  act  under 
the  influence  of  motives  or  not  ?  And  I  understand 
the  word  "motive"  in  terms  of  this  tendency  which 
we  have  toward  some  particular  course  of  action 
representing  the  satisfaction  of  a  concrete  desire; 
the  bringing  to  consciousness  of  such  an  end  con- 
stitutes a  motive.  Now  if  the  will  is  not  determined 
by  motives,  then  not  only  is  it  able  to  take  either 
direction,  but  seemingly  it  is  equally  liable  to  take 
either  direction.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  to 
give  any  ground  for  supposing  that  it  will  take  one 
course  in  preference  to  another,  even  to  one  who  is 
perfectly  aware  of  all  the  concrete  conditions  in  the 
case.  The  will  is  entirely  irresponsible.  In  the 
teeth  of  any  possible  reasons  for  or  against,  it  may 
fall  back  upon  a  decision  entirely  unreasoned,  and 
lying  wholly  in  its  own  arbitrary  nature.  But  in 
point  of  fact  is  not  this  precisely  the  same  as  saying 
that  the  choice  is  due  to  chance  ? 

No,  the  advocate  of  free  will  may  answer,  the  will 
does  not  act  independently  of  motives.  It  takes 
motives  into  account.  But  it  is  not  their  slave,  and 
p 


210        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

it  decides  in  the  end  which  motive  is  to  be  preferred. 
But  that  is  exactly  the  point.  Just  so  far  as  it  stands 
for  the  power  of  choice  between  motives  —  and  that 
is  its  whole  function  —  it  is  unmotived  and  arbitrary. 
For  what  again  is  a  motive  ?  A  motive  is  based  upon 
a  concrete  desire  or  tendency  of  our  nature  in  some 
particular  direction.  Nothing  could  possibly  be  a 
motive  for  us  had  we  not  already  somewhere  within 
us  a  disposition  to  act  or  to  do  something.  Food 
is  no  motive  to  a  man  who  is  not  hungry,  money  to 
a  man  whose  wants  it  will  not  satisfy,  public  opinion 
to  one  who  does  not  feel  himself  inclined  to  get  his 
neighbor's  good  will. 

Now  if  the  will  simply  decides  between  motives,  it 
is  itself  unmotived  and  unreasoned.  Is  it  said  that  the 
motive  actually  chosen  is  itself  the  reason  ?  It  may  be 
a  reason  for  the  act.  But  —  unless  we  admit  the 
whole  deterministic  position  —  it  is  not  the  reason 
for  the  choice,  for  that  swinging  of  the  balance  which 
gives  one  motive  the  advantage  over  the  other.  It  is 
the  whole  point  of  the  contention  that  it  is  not  the 
motive  or  impulse  which  is  itself  the  conqueror,  but 
rather  the  will  which  tips  the  balance.  The  act  of 
will  therefore,  once  more,  is  independent  of  the  im- 
pulse on  which  it  acts.  It  may  be  that  it  only  acts 
when  there  is  some  concrete  motive  asserting  itself. 
But  just  that  part  of  the  action  which  belongs  spe- 
cifically to  it  —  the  casting  vote  —  has  no  motived 
reason.  If  there  is  a  reason,  not  simply  why  I  act, 
but  why  I  choose  to  prefer  this  act  to  another,  this 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM          211 

reason  must  be  in  terms  of  some  other  motive  or 
tendency  of  my  nature.  And  in  that  case  the  will 
is  determined  by  this,  and  is  not  free  in  the  libertarian 
sense.  Once  more,  then,  free  will  means  the  power 
to  choose  without  motives,  and  so  leaves  the  decision 
to  what  is  quite  indistinguishable  from  chance. 

Surely  such  a  position  has  little  practically  to 
recommend  it  when  once  we  see  clearly  what  it 
means.  Against  it  there  is,  in  the  first  place,  the 
universal  assumption  that  for  practical  purposes  ac- 
tions are  not  incalculable,  but  follow  clearly  defined 
laws.  And  the  more  sane  action  is,  the  more  human, 
the  more  truly  moral,  the  more  confidence  we  feel 
that  it  can  be  predicted  with  approximate  certainty. 
Against  it  is  the  difficulty  of  interpreting  an  abstract 
power  of  will,  as  distinct  from  the  concrete  springs 
of  action,  in  intelligible  psychological  terms.  A 
mere  power  to  choose  that  is  not  based  upon  a  defi- 
nite bias  in  some  particular  direction  is  far  from  being 
easy  to  conceive.  Against  it  there  is  again  the  fact 
that  if  it  were  allowed  to  be  true,  it  would  be  preju- 
dicial to  the  interests  of  the  ethical  life.  A  freedom 
which  is  indistinguishable  from  chance,  and  which 
would  make  the  moral  man,  unless  happily  he  lost 
it  in  the  course  of  his  development,  forever  at  the 
mercy  of  an  ineducable  and  arbitrary  force  that 
might  at  any  moment  lead  him  away  from  the  path 
to  which  the  whole  bent  of  his  character  disposed  him, 
would  be  the  last  thing,  it  would  seem,  to  which  ethics 
would  want  to  commit  itself.  And  if  these  last  are 


212         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF   THE   WORLD 

not  the  true  facts  of  the  case,  if  as  a  man  becomes 
moral  his  character  more  and  more  influences  his 
acts  and  makes  the  outcome  certain,  we  should 
apparently  have  the  paradox  that  the  more  moral  a 
man  is  the  less  his  will  is  free. 

But  still  the  advocate  of  such  a  freedom  will  come 
back  to  certain  considerations  which  seem  to  him 
unanswerable.  In  the  first  place,  he  appeals  to  the 
supposed  consciousness  of  freedom.  As  I  stand 
before  a  parting  of  the  roads,  he  will  say,  I  am  con- 
scious that  it  is  equally  possible  for  me  to  take  either 
turn,  and  no  arguments  can  dispossess  me  of  this 
certainty.  Or  as  I  look  back  upon  an  act  already 
performed,  it  seems  to  me  quite  clear  that  I  was  not 
forced  to  take  the  course  I  did.  I  might  quite  as  well 
have  chosen  differently.  And  then,  in  the  second 
place,  it  is  urged  that  if  this  is  not  so,  the  whole  ethical 
life  is  meaningless.  If  I  am  forced  to  do  that  which 
I  do,  if  there  is  no  possibility  of  my  doing  otherwise, 
goodness  and  badness  are  mere  terms,  responsibility 
is  a  delusion,  and  it  can  no  more  be  said  that  I  ought 
to  take  this  course  than  that  the  stone  ought  to  fall 
under  the  influence  of  the  law  of  gravitation.  It 
does  fall,  and  that  is  the  end  of  the  matter. 

I  will  look  at  this  last  objection  first.  And  of 
course  if  it  is  true,  it  is  a  serious  objection,  and  may 
indeed  be  given  weight  even  in  the  face  of  psycho- 
logical and  other  difficulties.  I  have  already  sug- 
gested, however,  that  it  is  by  no  means  clear  that  the 
ethical  advantages  are  all  on  the  side  of  indeter- 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  213 

minism.  The  matter  may  now  be  examined  at  closer 
range. 

And  first,  as  to  some  of  the  consequences  which  do 
not  follow  from  determinism,  or  self-determinism, 
as  perhaps  it  might  better  be  called.  Determinism 
does  not  mean,  once  more,  that  we  are  determined 
by  forces  lying  outside  ourselves.  Of  course  our 
surroundings  —  and  these  from  the  point  of  view  of 
our  own  intentions  are  in  considerable  degree  the 
result  of  chance  —  have  very  much  to  say  in  regard 
to  the  development  of  character.  That  is  the  asser- 
tion, not  of  theory,  but  of  everyday  experience.  And 
yet  it  is  never  the  mere  external  environment  which 
influences  us.  A  certain  situation  may  bring  to 
light  sides  of  my  nature  which  otherwise  might  never 
have  been  disclosed.  But  still  these  elements  were 
really  there.  They  were  a  part  of  myself,  and  ex- 
cept for  them  the  situation  would  not  have  influenced 
me.  The  bad  man  who  appeals  to  circumstances 
to  excuse  his  deed  forgets  that  the  deed  never  would 
have  come  to  pass  had  there  not  been  an  element  of 
weakness  within  himself  to  give  the  temptation  a 
purchase.  Another  man  faces  just  the  same  situa- 
tion and  comes  off  unscathed  and  even  strengthened, 
because  he  is  a  different  sort  of  man.  So  that  the 
determination  again  is  always  in  some  part  at  least 
a  determination  from  within,  a  self-determination. 

In  the  second  place,  determinism  does  not  say, 
when  truly  interpreted,  that  choice  is  simply  the 
result  of  the  conflict  of  impulses,  the  stronger  impulse 


214        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

getting  the  upper  hand.  This  may  do  well  enough 
as  a  rough  and  approximate  statement,  but  it  may 
easily  be  misleading.  The  indeterminist  is  quite 
right  in  maintaining  that  we  are  not  simply  the 
theatre  of  conflict.  It  is  we  who  do  the  work  of 
choosing  as  well.  We  may  even  lend  our  aid  to 
the  weaker  motive  and  give  it  a  preponderating  in- 
fluence. Without  doubt  this  represents  a  truth; 
the  only  question  is  about  its  interpretation.  And 
understood  rightly  it  does  not  compel  us  to  alter  our 
previous  point  of  view.  It  only  suggests  that  there 
is  one  aspect  of  the  situation  which  has  not  been 
explicitly  enough  brought  forward.  This  is  the  fact, 
namely,  that  we  have  not  to  do  in  any  sense  with  a 
lot  of  isolated  impulses  or  motives,  but  with  a  sys- 
tem of  impulses.  The  self  is  this  system.  It  is  a 
unitary  organism  in  which  the  aspect  of  unity  is 
equally  important  with  the  variety  of  the  ways  in 
which  the  self  gets  expression.  Accordingly,  while 
it  will  do  in  a  popular  way  of  speaking  to  say  that 
one  impulse,  one  motive,  is  engaged  in  contest  with 
another,  such  a  statement  does  not  represent  the 
full  truth.  The  motive  is  a  motive  only  as  it  is  our 
motive,  as  it  is  identified  with  ourselves.  It  is  I 
who  am  opposed  to  myself,  not  one  separate  impulse 
to  another.  Unless  I,  the  organic  system  of  activ- 
ities, were  really  engaged,  there  would  indeed  be 
no  conflict.  It  is  just  because  the  unitary  I  is  di- 
vided, is  pulled  in  two  directions,  that  the  impulses 
can  stand  in  conscious  opposition.  The  self  is  thus 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM         215 

more  than  any  impulse,  or  any  number  of  impulses 
merely  added  together.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  no 
new  increment  of  force  or  will  over  and  above  all 
the  concrete  tendencies  to  action.  It  is  the  inter- 
relation of  tendencies  which,  by  the  fact  of  their  inter- 
relation, are  enabled  to  modify  one  another,  and  are 
allowed  to  get  expression  only  as  they  call  in  play 
to  some  extent  the  whole  organism  to  which  they 
belong. 

There  is  therefore  a  very  intelligible  sense  in  which 
it  is  not  the  motive  or  impulse  which  conquers,  but 
ourselves.  Back  of  this  temporary  gratification 
there  is  our  larger  and  completer  self  which  has  its 
interest  in  the  decision.  The  moment  we  stop  to 
deliberate,  each  impulse  seeks  to  engage  in  its  behalf 
all  the  other  tendencies  which  hitherto  have  been 
in  the  background  of  consciousness  or  wholly  un- 
conscious. It  is  this  appeal  to  our  more  compre- 
hensive nature,  to  the  latent  but  closely  interrelated 
springs  of  action  that  exist  within  us,  which  makes 
it  possible  to  distinguish  the  part  that  the  self  plays 
from  the  action  of  the  relatively  isolated  motives 
from  which  the  conflict  takes  its  rise.  And  in  the 
end  that  course  of  action  will  inevitably  be  chosen 
which  most  strongly  appeals  to  this  larger  self,  in 
so  far  as  it  is  able  to  assert  its  nature.  The  whole 
process  of  deliberation  is  the  process  of  determining 
what  it  is  we  really  want.  When  that  is  once  settled, 
the  appropriate  action  follows.  But  it  is  quite  con- 
ceivable that  this  should  reverse  the  relative  position 


2l6         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

of  the  motives  as  they  existed  at  the  start.  That 
line  of  action  which  appeared  to  us  more  desirable 
we  may  decide  is  not,  in  the  light  of  all  we  find  it  to 
imply,  really  worth  what  it  seemed  at  first.  Taken 
in  an  isolated  way,  one  motive  is  stronger  than  an- 
other. If  the  results  of  the  action  went  no  farther 
than  the  present  satisfaction,  we  should  unhesitat- 
ingly prefer  it  to  its  less  attractive  competitor.  But 
this  is  just  what  we  cannot  do — isolate  motives  in  this 
fashion.  And  when  the  weight  of  our  wider  inter- 
ests is  thrown  into  the  scale,  it  may  enable  us  to 
decide  against  the  so-called  stronger  motive  - 
stronger,  that  is,  in  its  separate  aspect,  but  not  in  its 
real  appeal  to  our  total  nature.  This  is  what  we 
mean  when  we  say  that  we  have  decided  to  do  a  cer- 
tain thing  although  we  really  want  to  do  another. 
We  should  rather  have  this  bit  of  pleasure  than  per- 
form the  act  of  self-denial  involved  in  giving  it  up, 
so  long  as  the  pleasure  and  the  self-denial  are  alone 
under  comparison.  But  the  fact  is  that  the  com- 
parison is  in  reality  not  so  limited.  And  when  we 
take  all  the  consequences  into  account,  we  discover 
that  we  do  not  want  to  sacrifice  so  much  for  a  tem- 
porary gratification,  however  eagerly  desired.  And 
because  we  really  want  the  more  permanent  rather 
than  the  more  immediate  good,  we  decide  as  we  do; 
had  we  not  at  bottom  preferred  the  self-denial  with 
all  its  results  to  the  pleasure  and  all  its  results,  we 
should  have  decided  differently. 
And  now,  in  the  third  place,  indeterminism  does 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM  217 

not  deny  the  possibility  of  growth.  What  it  asserts 
is  that,  with  a  given  degree  of  development,  and  a 
given  situation,  a  man's  act  is  not  indeterminate; 
there  really  is  only  one  course  open  to  him  at  the 
time.  But  this,  so  far  from  meaning  that  character 
is  fixed  and  unchanging,  implies  just  the  opposite. 
It  is  precisely  this  act,  which  is  the  determined  out- 
come of  my  present  stage  of  growth,  which  in  its 
results  reveals  me  further  to  myself  and  conditions 
the  next  step  in  advance.  It  will  be  well  to  look  at 
this  a  little  further. 

Life  is  a  process  of  self -revelation.  Each  man 
comes  into  the  world  with  a  certain  equipment,  a 
host  of  potentialities  which  are  as  yet  unrealized. 
And  the  possibilities  of  attainment  are  of  course 
limited  by  this  original  endowment.  It  is  but  a 
truism  to  say  that  if  a  man  is  to  do  a  certain  thing, 
it  must  be  in  him  to  do  it.  No  new  powers  are  ever 
imported  into  us  bodily  from  the  outside.  The  germ 
must  be  there,  to  be  called  into  life  by  the  presence  of 
favorable  opportunities,  or  no  result  can  possibly 
come  about.  Nor  obviously  do  we  have  possession 
of  our  powers  at  the  start.  All  life  is  a  process  of 
coming  into  the  heritage  of  ourselves.  We  never 
know  ourselves  fully.  At  any  moment  new  cir- 
cumstances may  reveal  sides  of  our  nature  which 
neither  we  nor  those  who  knew  us  had  suspected. 
"Six  months  ago,"  says  Theron  Ware  in  Mr.  Fred- 
eric's novel,  after  his  moral  collapse,  "I  was  a  good 
man.  I  not  only  seemed  to  be  good  to  myself  and 


2l8        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

to  others,  but  I  was  good."  But  in  reality  the  ele- 
ments of  weakness  were  there  all  the  time ;  the  de- 
cisive test  alone  was  lacking.  And  when  it  came, 
it  brought  about  the  complete  overthrow  of  all  that 
outward  fabric  of  character  for  which  the  man  had 
stood  to  himself  and  to  others.  Character,  then,  is 
something  which  in  its  very  nature  is  not  fixed,  but 
growing.  Its  possibilities  are  indeed  limited.  No 
one  can  hope  to  gather  grapes  from  thorns,  or  make 
silk  purses  out  of  sows'  ears.  But  practically  there  is 
never  ground  for  any  certainty  as  to  what  these 
boundaries  are,  nor  for  asserting  dogmatically  that 
in  any  given  stage  of  attainment  the  limit  has  been 
reached. 

Now  the  way  this  growth  comes  about  is  primarily 
by  the  method  of  action.  Of  course  other  influences 
that  are  not  the  immediate  result  of  our  own  active 
experimenting  appeal  to  latent  impulses  within  us,  and 
help  form  what  we  call  character.  Impressions  that 
come  to  us  from  the  world  of  nature,  and  more  particu- 
larly those  revelations  of  the  meaning  of  life  which 
we  get  from  the  lives  and  the  words  of  our  fellows,  call 
out  our  dormant  tendencies,  and  help  give  them  a 
place  in  the  system  of  motives  which  lead  to  action. 
But  after  all  it  is  the  supreme  test  that  comes  with 
the  need  of  action  which  puts  the  final  stamp  upon 
us,  and  infallibly  lets  us  know  what  manner  of  men 
we  are.  "How  can  a  man  learn  to  know  himself?'' 
says  Goethe.  "By  reflection  never,  only  by  action." 
We  may  look  ahead  to  some  future  possible  emer- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM         21 9 

gency,  and  think  that  we  should  act  in  this  way  or  in 
that;  and  we  may  of  course  be  right  about  it.  But 
such  forecasting  is  readily  mistaken.  It  is  only  when 
the  stress  and  strain  of  present  need  comes,  bringing 
to  light  our  hidden  weakness  or  our  hidden  strength, 
that  the  impress  of  finality  is  put  upon  our  decisions. 
So  long  as  it  is  merely  an  academic  question,  and  not 
an  immediately  practical  one,  we  simply  cannot 
realize  its  full  significance.  Conduct  is  the  normal 
and  ultimate  field  for  growth. 

And  there  are  two  phases  of  this  relation  of  action 
to  development  which  may  be  emphasized  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  objection  of  the  indeterminist.  If  we 
take  the  word  " character"  to  mean  the  system  of 
tendencies  and  impulses  as  they  have  become  defi- 
nitely organized  in  past  experience,  then  we  may  say 
that  in  this  sense  character  does  not  absolutely 
determine  action.  For  every  act  involves  a  situation 
which  is  in  greater  or  less  degree  novel.  No  man 
can  act  wholly  on  the  basis  of  past  decisions,  for  the 
present  can  never  be  wholly  like  the  past.  Of  course 
character,  or  organized  habits  of  action,  plays  a 
vastly  important  role  in  determining  each  new  act. 
And  we  are  justified  ordinarily  in  prophesying  pretty 
confidently  on  the  basis  of  it,  especially  when  the 
novelty  of  the  situation  is  relatively  slight.  But  yet 
character  is  not  absolutely  compulsive.  For  in  the 
situation  there  may  be  that  which  appeals  to  forces 
within  us  not  to  be  stated  in  terms  of  past  attain- 
ment. It  is  the  new  decision,  in  other  words,  which 


220         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE    WORLD 

for  the  first  time  brings  to  light  in  its  completeness 
what  our  present  character  is  at  the  time  of  making 
it.  Each  choice  is  a  definition  of  the  growing  char- 
acter, not  a  mere  product  of  past  character  To 
be  sure  there  is  a  wider  sense  of  the  term  in  which  it 
may  be  said  that  character  wholly  determines  the 
act.  If,  that  is,  we  mean  by  character  everything 
that  we  are,  potentially  even,  at  the  moment  of  the 
choice,  there  is  nothing  in  the  result  which  is  inde- 
pendent of  it.  But  for  practical  purposes  character 
means  what  I  have  taken  it  to  mean.  It  is  the  or- 
ganized result  of  past  experience,  defined  in  habits 
of  action,  and  capable  of  being  known  and  summed 
up  by  ourselves  and  others.  And  as  such  character 
is  only  one  of  the  determining  influences  to  which  the 
act  is  due. 

But  now,  furthermore,  the  result  of  our  acts  is 
all  the  time  more  or  less  modifying  our  character — 
the  self  as  it  has  actually  come  to  self-expression. 
The  consequences  of  the  act  as  we  foresaw  them  have 
not,  when  they  come,  just  the  flavor  we  anticipated. 
Other  consequences,  too,  disclose  themselves  which 
we  did  not  foresee  at  all,  and  which  give  a  new  com- 
plexion to  our  choice.  The  result  is  a  certain  recon- 
struction of  our  motives.  The  dominant  impulses 
on  which  we  have  been  acting  are  either  strengthened, 
or  they  are  weakened,  by  our  fuller  knowledge  of 
the  direction  in  which  they  are  leading  us.  Things 
which  hitherto  have  meant  little  or  nothing  to  us 
receive  an  impetus,  and  begin  to  take  on  a  real  value 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM         221 

for  our  lives.  In  short,  character  is  in  process  of 
formation. 

Now  if  determinism  is  quite  compatible  with 
growth,  it  cannot  be  held  to  offer  any  justification 
for  the  attitude  of  passive  acquiescence  in  whatever 
chance  may  bring — for  the  point  of  view,  that  is,  of 
fatalism.  If  I,  as  the  observer  of  another's  struggle, 
am  inclined  to  shirk  responsibility  by  offering  the 
excuse  that  his  act  is  already  determined,  the  answer 
is  plain.  Given  all  the  outside  influences  that  are 
brought  to  bear  upon  him,  and  his  act  will  depend 
finally  upon  the  way  in  which  his  nature  is  aroused 
by  the  appeal  which  the  situation  makes.  But  I,  as 
an  observer,  am  a  part  of  this  situation,  and  it  there- 
fore depends  upon  me  whether  certain  possible  in- 
fluences shall  be  forthcoming  or  not.  My  act  or  word, 
therefore,  always  has  in  it  the  possibility  that  it  may 
strike  a  responsive  chord,  and  so  make  the  result 
different  from  what  it  otherwise  would  have  been. 
Upon  the  giving  or  the  withholding  of  my  help,  the 
whole  issue  may  hang. 

And  while  the  point  is  rather  more  easily  obscured, 
essentially  the  same  thing  can  be  said  to  the  one  who 
is  inclined  to  interpret  determinism  in  terms  of  fatal- 
ism in  his  own  life.  What  is  the  use  of  trying?  the 
fatalist  says.  If  things  are  to  happen  in  one  particu- 
lar way,  and  that  way  is  already  decided,  I  may  as 
well  lean  back  and  let  events  take  their  course. 
Nothing  I  can  do  will  make  any  difference  in  the 
result.  But  this  is  precisely  what  is  not  true.  To 


222         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

be  sure,  if  I  do  not  want  a  certain  end,  I  shall  never 
choose  that  end.  But  if  I  do  not  want  it,  I  have  no 
reason  to  complain  that  it  is  out  of  my  reach.  If, 
however,  the  want  is  there,  by  that  very  fact  I  have 
the  motive  force  which  is  an  earnest  of  its  possible 
satisfaction,  if  only  I  want  it  bad  enough  to  adopt  the 
necessary  means.  And  that  involves  action  on  my 
part,  not  a  mere  drifting  with  events.  In  numerous 
ways  I  can  strengthen  my  desire  by  bringing  to  bear 
upon  myself  in  cold  blood  influences  which  will 
coerce  me  in  the  heat  of  the  crisis.  I  may  dwell 
upon  the  thought  of  it,  bringing  before  myself  its 
attractions,  and  so  increase  both  the  probability 
that  it  will  be  called  to  mind  at  need,  and  the  force 
with  which  it  will  appeal  to  me  as  a  motive.  I  may 
set  in  motion  influences  which  will  enlist  my  pride 
or  my  interests,  and  so  make  it  more  difficult  for  me 
to  back  down.  We  are  all  the  time  doing  these  things 
naturally  and  spontaneously  when  our  desires  are 
in  question ;  and  we  have  only  to  recognize  this  fact, 
and  note  the  added  motive  force  it  brings  to  us,  to 
be  able  to  adopt  it  as  a  conscious  and  habitual  tool 
for  increasing  the  likelihood  of  attaining  our  desired 
ends. 

It  may  be  said  that  this  power  to  deliberate  and 
to  fortify  oneself  against  temptation  is  again  a  de- 
termined fact  of  character  which  we  are  unable  to 
originate.  Very  true.  But  the  only  important  thing, 
practically,  is  the  fact  that  we  are  beings  who  can 
deliberate,  to  whom  rational  considerations  may 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  223 

be  made  to  appeal ;  and  that  therefore  by  thought 
and  resolve  we  may  influence  events  and  character. 
Of  course  this  assumes  that  we  are  creatures  with 
insistent  wants,  whose  nature  it  is  to  exert  ourselves 
for  ends  which  we  desire.  It  may  be  that  there  are 
individuals  of  whom  this  is  not  true.  But  if  that 
is  so,  the  difficulty  is  not  one  of  theory,  but  of  tem- 
perament. Primarily  fatalism  gets  hold  of  a  man 
not  so  much  because  he  has  reasoned  himself  into 
a  belief  that  effort  is  useless,  as  because  the  springs 
of  action  are  themselves  weakened.  If  he  does  not 
really  want  things,  it  is  of  course  useless  to  argue  to 
him  that  he  could  get  them  if  he  wanted  them. 
The  remedy  should  be  applied  primarily  to  the  will, 
and  not  to  the  reason.  But  such  a  man  is  at  least 
a  rare  exception.  In  the  typical  man  we  can  assume 
the  existence  of  desires  and  ambitions. 

And  now  if  we  add  to  this  once  more  the  further 
assumption  that  men  are  capable  of  being  appealed 
to  by  reason,  and  that  accordingly  the  intellectual 
recognition  of  the  attainableness  of  things  by  effort 
may  have  an  influence  in  removing  obstacles  and 
spurring  on  to  endeavor,  the  basis  of  fatalism  is 
taken  away.  It  is  taken  away  simply  by  the  appeal 
to  fact  —  the  fact  that  we  can  get  things  by  working 
for  them.  And  since  man,  again  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
is  a  rational  being,  this  recognition  of  the  value  of 
resolve  and  endeavor  itself  is  a  motive  force.  It 
helps  set  action  free,  and  checks  the  tendency  to  a 
fatalistic  acquiescence  and  inertia.  Of  course  it  sup- 


224        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

plies  no  positive  motive.  It  assumes  that  the  want 
is  there,  and  it  cannot  work  without  this  assump- 
tion. But  since  action  is  likely  to  be  hindered  by 
wrong  thinking  and  helped  by  right,  since  the  belief 
that  a  thing  is  possible  will  inevitably  add  to  the  im- 
petus of  our  struggle  for  it,  and  the  belief  that  it  is 
out  of  our  reach  will  react  to  cool  our  ardor,  the  true 
understanding  of  the  facts,  and  the  intellectual  ap- 
preciation of  where  the  fallacy  of  fatalism  lies,  are 
not  to  be  disparaged. 

And  at  this  point  it  is  perhaps  well  to  say  a  word 
about  the  supposed  feeling  of  freedom  —  the  second 
thing  to  which  the  indeterminist  appeals.  Before  we 
choose  we  have,  it  is  said,  the  consciousness  of  our 
power  to  take  either  course ;  and  afterwards  as  we 
look  back  upon  our  act  we  see  that  we  really  were 
unconstrained,  and  that  we  might  equally  as  well 
have  chosen  differently.  Now  in  part  this  belief 
depends  upon  the  fact  that,  for  our  consciousness, 
the  choice  we  are  to  take  is  actually  in  doubt.  We 
do  not  at  the  beginning  know  ourselves.  The  choice 
first  defines  our  real  desire.  And  therefore,  until 
we  have  chosen,  until  we  have  made  up  our  minds, 
we  regard  ourselves  as  potentially  able  to  take  either 
path.  Of  course  if  we  did  not  do  so,  there  would 
be  no  occasion  for  our  trying  to  choose.  So  again 
physically  either  path  is  open  to  us,  and  we  often  tend 
to  confound  this  physical  possibility  with  the  moral 
and  psychological  one.  But  apart  from  these  two 
qualifications,  is  not  our  assertion  that  we  might 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM        22$ 

have  chosen  differently  really  a  mistaken  inter- 
pretation of  our  consciousness?  In  the  grip  of 
remorse  I  look  back  and  say :  I  could  have  taken  the 
better  course ;  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  me,  and 
the  fault  was  all  my  own.  Yes,  I  could  have  done 
otherwise.  But  is  there  not  always  implicitly  present 
back  of  the  assertion  the  qualifying  clause:  "if  I 
had  been  a  better  man,  the  man  I  now  recognize  I 
should  have  been."  Is  not  this  the  very  essence  of 
my  self-condemnation  ?  I  blame  and  despise  myself 
because  I  was  the  sort  of  man  from  whom  such 
conduct  was  the  necessary  outcome.  //  I  had  seen 
things  differently,  if  I  had  had  a  little  more  persist- 
ence and  self-control,  if  I  had  only  felt  more  con- 
sideration for  others,  I  should  have  acted  in  the  way 
that  now  I  should  prefer  to  have  acted.  But  the 
"  if ' '  was  there.  I  was  not  the  sort  of  man  I  wish  now 
that  I  had  been ;  I  was  the  sort  of  man  whom  I  now 
despise.  Might  I  now  put  myself  back  in  the  past, 
I  would  choose  differently.  But  I  was  at  the  time 
what  my  act  shows  me  to  have  been ;  and  it  could 
not  have  been  different  unless  /  had  been  different.1 

1  Professor  James  would  object  to  determinism  on  the  ground 
that  it  interferes  with  the  zest  of  life.  To  feel  that  we  are  in  a 
cast-iron  universe,  within  which  there  are  no  real  alternatives,  no 
open  chances,  nothing  left  to  unforced  initiative,  is  intolerable  to 
the  free  spirit.  This  it  appears  to  me  is,  for  Professor  James  at 
any  rate  as  a  pragmatist,  an  unjustified  complaint.  No  theory 
can  prevent  chances  from  seeming  to  be  open,  so  long  as  we  re- 
main partially  ignorant  of  the  world  and  of  ourselves,  and  therefore 
are  unable  to  predict  our  course  of  action  or  the  possibilities 
of  the  situation  until  our  choice  brings  to  light  the  determining 
Q 


226         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

And  the  bearing  of  this  upon  the  question  of  prac- 
tical responsibility  is  perhaps  sufficiently  clear.  If 
my  act  was  determined  to  be  what  it  was,  I  am  not 
responsible,  says  the  indeterminist.  Certainly  I 
am  responsible;  who  else?  It  is  my  nature  which 
determines  the  act.  I  myself  am  the  source,  not 
something  external  to  me.  If  it  were  not  true  that 
my  nature  determined  it,  if  there  were  an  arbitrary 
and  incalculable  something  called  free  will  asserting 
itself  independently  of  my  definite  wants  and  de- 
sires, then  indeed  I,  as  a  concrete  person,  could  not 
be  held  responsible.  For  a  practical  responsibility 
two  things,  and  only  two,  are  needed.  There  must 
be  a  person  to  whose  own  conscious  choice  an  act 
is  due,  not  to  blind  force  and  external  compulsion. 
And  such  a  person  must  be  amenable  to  reason, 
capable  of  being  influenced  by  motives.  To  hold  a 
man  responsible,  in  other  words,  is  to  attempt  to 
bring  home  to  his  consciousness  the  fact  that  the 
results  of  his  deed  will  be  made  to  react  upon  him- 
self, and  so  actually  to  influence  him  in  his  decision. 
Responsibility  is  a  weapon  for  exerting  a  practical 
influence,  and  as  such  it  is  not  prejudiced  in  the 
least  by  any  theory  of  self -determinism. 

And  yet  perhaps  the  difficulty  is  not  fully  met  after 
all.  Granted  that  for  practical  purposes  a  man  may 
be  held  responsible,  he  yet,  the  indeterminist  may 

human  factor.  Our  practical  attitude  in  this  respect  is  therefore 
indistinguishable  from  what  it  would  be  if  the  result  were  actually 
undetermined. 


THE  PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM  227 

say,  has  no  real  choice  in  the  last  analysis.  He 
may  be  responsible  for  the  act,  but  he  is  not  respon- 
sible for  the  nature  which  determines  the  act.  He 
did  not  create  himself.  He  finds  himself  with  cer- 
tain possibilities;  and  these  given  possibilities  limit 
with  absolute  definiteness  the  field  of  his  choice  and 
action.  If  we  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  thing,  therefore, 
he  is  not  responsible  for  his  act  because  he  is  not 
responsible  for  his  nature.  And  he  can  retort  upon 
the  power  who  claims  the  right  to  hold  him  to  an 
account :  It  is  you  who  gave  birth  to  me  and  all  my 
possibilities ;  you  must  take  the  credit  or  the  blame, 
as  it  may  be,  for  your  workmanship. 

The  difficulty  I  believe  is  a  more  real  one  than  is 
usually  recognized  by  the  determinist,  and  the  an- 
swer not  altogether  easy.  If  there  really  is  the  pos- 
sibility of  shifting  the  ultimate  responsibility  upon 
a  power  beyond  ourselves,  it  will  be  pretty  hard  to 
hold  the  protestant  down  to  the  mere  practical  as- 
pects of  the  matter  and  forbid  his  appealing  to  ulti- 
mate facts.  Of  course  I  may  say  to  him:  Your 
business  is  with  the  man  you  are;  no  matter  how 
you  came  to  be,  you  are  yourself,  and  you  cannot  get 
away  from  the  fact,  and  so  you  are  bound  to  make 
what  you  can  of  yourself  and  cease  from  unavail- 
ing pleas  and  excuses.  This  is  very  good  practical 
advice;  but,  after  all,  there  is  something  rather 
arbitrary  in  it  as  a  final  statement.  If  some  being 
not  myself  brought  me  into  existence  through  no 
choice  of  mine,  and  decided  what  nature  I  was  to 


228         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

receive,  it  does  seem  as  if  I  were  not  altogether 
unjustified  in  pleading  the  fact  as  at  least  an  extenu- 
ating circumstance. 

In  attempting  to  indicate  what  I  think  is  the  solu- 
tion of  this  final  difficulty,  it  should  be  considered, 
in  the  first  place,  that  we  are  compelled  to  stop  some- 
where in  the  process  of  fixing  responsibility.  There 
must  be  a  point  where  the  search  for  a  further  source 
of  responsibility  becomes  illegitimate.  There  is,  for 
example,  no  real  meaning  to  the  question:  Who 
is  responsible  for  God's  nature  ?  God  is  responsible 
for  his  acts ;  but  it  is  meaningless  to  talk  of  responsi- 
bility for  that  which  is  the  original  and  eternal  source 
of  acts.  In  other  words,  the  question  of  responsibil- 
ity only  comes  up  in  connection  with  an  effect,  not 
with  the  ground  from  which  this  effect  flows.  Of 
ultimate  existence  evidently  we  cannot  ask:  What 
caused  it?  If  it  had  a  cause,  it  would  not  be  ulti- 
mate. The  search  for  further  responsibility  is  just 
the  search  for  a  further  cause ;  and  so  unless  we  stop 
somewhere,  we  are  committed  to  the  conception  of 
an  infinite  causal  regress.  Now  hi  terms  of  God's 
nature  this  is  comparatively  plain.  If  it  is  said, 
God  is  not  responsible  for  his  acts  because  he  is  not 
responsible  for  his  nature,  we  probably  feel  at  once 
that  there  is  some  fallacy  present.  The  argument 
is  based,  once  more,  upon  the  unmeaning  concep- 
tion of  a  cause  of  ultimate  existence,  of  an  ultimate 
which  is  not  ultimate.  And  if  we  see  that  this 
is  not  legitimate,  if  we  see  that  cause  and  respon- 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  2 29 

sibility  are  both  to  be  predicated  only  of  what  is 
derivative,  of  the  act  rather  than  the  self  or  being  who 
is  the  ground  of  the  act,  the  attempt  to  pass  on 
responsibility  will  of  necessity  have  to  be  dropped. 
What  is  needed,  therefore,  in  order  to  do  away 
with  such  a  shifting  of  responsibility  in  the  case 
of  the  human  self,  is  to  make  this  self  equally  ulti- 
mate with  God.  And  this  is  the  position  which  has 
already  been  argued  for  in  a  preceding  chapter.  In 
other  words,  God  does  not  create  us  by  an  arbitrary 
choice  of  his,  so  that  our  nature  as  human  selves  is 
merely  secondary  and  derivative.  This  nature  of 
ours  is  an  ultimate  fact  of  reality.  It  is  implicated 
in  the  deepest  constitution  of  the  universe,  in  the 
nature  of  God  himself.  Reality  is  a  confederacy 
of  free  beings;  and  no  one  of  these  is  ultimately 
responsible  for  the  others,  since  each  alike  is  essen- 
tial to  the  whole  with  which  reality  is  identified. 
For  a  self  in  this  respect  does  not  stand  on  a  level 
with  a  thing.  Or,  since  every  fact  of  the  universe 
which  is  not  a  self  can  be  reduced  to  the  act  of  a  self, 
there  is  an  essential  difference  between  a  self  and 
an  act.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  an  act  is  also  an 
ultimate  constituent  of  reality.  But  it  is  not  in  the 
final  sense  in  which  this  is  true  of  a  unitary  and  self- 
conscious  being.  An  act  is  always  the  act  of  a  self. 
It  has  to  be  referred  to  a  definite  whole  of  conscious 
life  of  which  it  is  an  expression.  But  for  that  reason 
it  can  never  have  even  a  quasi-independence  of  exist- 
ence. It  is  only  a  personal  unity  of  experience, 


230        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

exclusive  of  other  unities,  which  can  serve  as  a  really 
individual  constituent  of  reality.  Since  therefore 
each  self,  even  God,  must  distinguish  other  selves 
from  its  own  nature,  it  must  regard  them  as  in  a  sense 
equally  sovereign  with  itself.  It  cannot  stand  to 
them  in  the  relation  of  responsible  originator,  since 
they  lie  beyond  its  own  life.  It  only  is  to  the  act 
which  is  a  part  of  its  own  being  that  it  can  stand  in 
such  a  relation.  Other  selves  it  simply  recognizes, 
not  as  its  creation,  but  as  furnishing  the  conditions 
of  its  own  life.  The  reality  of  these  related  selves 
is  in  an  ultimate  sense  not  made  or  caused;  it 
simply  is. 

A  self,  then,  is  due  to  no  more  ultimate  cause.  And 
since  an  act  is  always  due  to  a  self,  it  follows  that  it 
is  due  to  no  more  than  a  single  self.  There  is  noth- 
ing back  of  ourselves,  therefore,  on  which  to  cast  the 
blame.  We  are  what  we  are,  it  is  true.  It  is  true 
that  we  did  not  make  ourselves.  But  neither  did 
any  one  make  us,  in  an  absolute  and  arbitrary 
sense.  There  is  no  further  court  of  appeal  from 
our  own  nature.  That  is;  and  questions  about 
its  ultimate  source  are  questions  about  how  reality 
is  made. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   EVIL 

PERHAPS  at  no  time  does  man  get  so  clearly  the 
sense  of  his  own  limitations  and  shortness  of  vision 
as  when  in  some  peculiarly  searching  way  he  is 
brought  face  to  face  with  the  immense  fact  of  evil. 
What  I  shall  say  lays  no  claim  to  furnish  a  com- 
pletely satisfying  answer.  There  are  moods  indeed 
which  come  to  every  man  when  all  attempts  at  an 
answer  will  inevitably  seem  weak  and  cold.  Never- 
theless, while  any  statement  is  bound  to  run  this 
risk,  it  is  perhaps  not  impossible  to  point  out  the 
direction  in  which  a  solution  would  seem  to  lie, 
though  it  is  well  to  bear  constantly  in  mind,  here 
even  more  than  elsewhere,  that  we  are  dealing  only 
with  approximations. 

If  one  were  to  exalt  the  first  natural  impression 
that  the  facts  of  life  make  upon  him  into  a  specula- 
tive theory,  he  would  very  probably  divide  the  uni- 
verse somehow  between  two  principles,  one  of  good 
and  the  other  of  evil,  both  alike  real  and  positive, 
and  each  engaged  in  everlasting  warfare  with  the 
other.  This  is  perhaps  the  most  obvious  way  in 
which  to  picture  to  our  minds  the  reason  for  the 
actual  mixture  which  we  find  in  the  world.  More- 
over, it  has  a  certain  dramatic  quality  which  makes 

231 


232         RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

it  striking  and  impressive  to  the  imagination.  The 
thought  of  the  world  as  the  theatre  of  a  mighty  con- 
flict between  hostile  powers  has  therefore  familiarized 
itself  to  men,  sometimes  in  religion,  sometimes  in 
literature,  and  occasionally  in  philosophical  thought. 
And  yet  almost  necessarily  it  has  to  be  modified  to 
some  extent  in  order  to  make  its  full  appeal,  and 
this  dramatic  defect  is  indicative  of  its  philosophical 
weakness  also.  For  taken  in  its  strict  form  it  baffles 
the  imagination  finally  by  bringing  things  to  a  dead- 
lock that  allows  of  no  issue.  And  so  ultimately  it 
makes  the  whole  world  process  not  simply  unmean- 
ing, but  wearisome  as  well ;  there  is  nothing  on  which 
the  imagination  can  rest.  Accordingly  there  has 
to  be  introduced  into  the  conception,  before  it  can 
get  any  wide  human  hold,  the  suggestion  at  least  of 
a  final  subordination.  No  matter  how  deadly  the 
issue  now  may  be,  how  powerful  the  hosts  of  evil, 
there  lies  in  the  background  the  reference  to  a  day 
of  fate  when  the  struggle  shall  find  its  consummation 
and  its  meaning.  Or,  to  put  it  in  the  language  of 
technical  philosophy,  it  involves  a  dualism,  and  a 
dualism  which  is  ultimate  can  never  be  satisfactory 
to  reason  any  more  than  to  imagination.  We  may 
very  conceivably  have  to  admit  that  the  opposition  is 
by  us  not  capable  of  being  resolved.  But  if  so,  at 
least  we  cannot  pretend  that  the  outcome  satisfies 
us  intellectually.  If  the  whole  meaning  of  reason 
lies  in  the  search  for  a  unity  and  final  harmony,  such 
a  dualism  can  only  mark  its  temporary  defeat;  it 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  233 

cannot  be  a  final  satisfaction  of  the  impulse  to  under- 
stand. And  accordingly  we  are  justified  in  neglect- 
ing the  claims  of  dualism  as  a  serious  speculative 
solution  of  the  problem  of  evil.  Whether  or  not  a 
real  solution  can  be  found,  it  must  at  any  rate  be 
looked  for  in  some  other  direction. 

The  same  defect  belongs  to  the  less  rigorous  but 
perhaps  more  common  attitude  which  finds  the 
source  of  evil,  not  in  an  active  principle,  but  rather 
in  some  passive  but  stubborn  obstruction  to  the 
realization  of  the  good,  such  as  is  usually  identified 
with  matter. 

"  He  does  not  forsake  the  world 
But  stands  before  it  modelling  in  the  clay 
And  moulding  there  His  image.     Age  by  age 
The  clay  wars  with  His  fingers  and  pleads  hard 
For  its  old,  heavy,  dull  and  shapeless  ease. 
At  times  it  crumbles  and  a  nation  falls; 
Now  moves  awry  and  demon  hordes  are  born." 

In  religion  this  has  been  a  very  common  attitude 
indeed,  by  reason  of  that  fundamental  conflict  in 
experience  which  naturally  interprets  itself  as  a 
war  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  the  lusts  of  the 
flesh  being  then  extended  to  matter  as  such  in  all  its 
forms.  But  this  equally  involves  a  fatal  obstacle 
to  any  real  unity  that  we  can  give  the  world,  and 
means  the  final  thwarting  of  the  effort  to  understand. 
If  a  dualism  of  good  and  evil  principles  does  not 
satisfy  the  demands  of  reason,  so  a  too  easy  optimism 
which  tries  to  deny  or  ignore  the  existence  of  evil 


234        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

altogether  does  not  satisfy  the  facts.  Attempts  to 
settle  the  question  in  this  way  have  been  compara- 
tively frequent,  and  they  cover  a  tolerably  wide  range. 
From  popular  optimism  such  as  that  of  which  Pope 
is  the  mouthpiece,  with  its  light-hearted  appeals  to 
the  universal  order,  to  the  complacent  shutting  of 
the  eyes  to  realities  which  marks  such  pseudo-phi- 
losophies as  Christian  Science,  all  these  solutions  suf- 
fer from  the  radical  defect  that  they  syncopate  the 
meaning  of  human  experience.  It  must  indeed  be 
in  some  sense  true  that  if  a  harmony  is  attainable  at 
all,  what  seems  to  us  evil  has  a  part  to  play  in  a  larger 
good.  But  much  depends  upon  the  force  and  acute- 
ness  with  which  one  has  felt  the  pressure  of  the  prob- 
lem and  the  need  of  a  solution.  If  the  experience 
back  of  the  solution  has  been  a  meagre  and  shallow 
one,  if  it  has  never  come  into  close  contact  with  those 
hard  and  bitter  facts  of  suffering  and  evil  and  de- 
spair, then  while  much  that  it  has  to  say  may  be  in 
its  place  excellent,  it  never  will  seem  to  be  at  close 
grip  with  reality,  and  it  will  fail  to  appeal  to  any  age 
that  has  seen  a  little  deeper  into  life.  It  will  tend 
to  be  the  easy  content  of  a  comfortable  Philistinism. 
Few  men  probably  have  ever  found  much  real  com- 
fort, except  for  the  misfortunes  of  other  people,  hi 
the  well-worn  maxim  of  optimism  that  a  private  evil 
may  prove  to  be  a  "universal  good.  To  sink  the 
individual's  good  in  that  of  the  universe  is  just  the 
sign  of  a  loose  hold  upon  the  reality  of  evil.  The 
conception  of  the  general  system  of  things  is  too 


THE   PROBLEM    OF  EVIL  235 

vague  a  notion,  in  the  first  place,  to  mean  much  in 
itself  to  any  save  the  mere  theorizer  about  evil  in 
the  abstract,  And  then  it  leaves  xmt,  too,  what  is 
quite  the  most  important  part  —  the  question  who 
it  is  that  is  to  reap  this  supposed  advantage.  Good 
is  not  mere  good  in  general.  It  is  good  for  some  one. 
And  it  is  not  immaterial,  at  least  to  me  who  am  the 
sufferer,  whether  it  shall  turn  to  my  good,  or  whether 
it  only  subserves  another's  gain  —  a  quite  indefinite 
and  general  "  other."  To  make  the  question  purely 
an  impersonal  one,  as  if  it  were  a  matter  simply  of 
arithmetic,  of  balancing  states  of  pleasant  and  pain- 
ful feeling  wherever  they  might  happen  to  be  found,  is 
to  show  clearly  that  the  weight  of  the  problem  never 
really  has  come  home  to  us  in  terms  of  feeling.  Un- 
less the  gain  it  brings  is  somehow  made  my  gain, 
then  my  suffering  is  in  so  far  a  sheer  evil  and  blot 
upon  the  universe,  not  to  be  offset  completely  by 
any  possible  advantage  that  may  be  won  by  some 
other  life.  To  sacrifice  the  good  of  a  single  sentient 
creature  to  a  larger  whole,  call  it  humanity,  or  the 
absolute,  or  what  you  will,  so  long  as  the  realization 
of  the  benefit  lies  beyond  the  experience  of  the  being 
who  feels  the  pain,  is  to  leave  a  fact  of  evil  in  the 
universe  which  is  absolute  and  uncompensated.  So 
the  popular  solution  which  evolution  has  to  offer  must 
be  as  a  final  and  fully  satisfying  solution  always 
more  or  less  of  a  failure.  Merely  to  look  forward 
to  some  possible  future  felicity  does  not  justify  the 
woes  of  the  present. 


or 


236         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

"  It  had  not  much 

Consoled  the  race  of  mastodons  to  know 
Before  they  went  to  fossil  that  anon 
Their  place  would  quicken  with  the  elephant. 
They  were  not  elephants,  but  mastodons. 
And  I,  a  man  as  men  are  now,  and  not 
As  men  may  he  hereafter,  feel  with  man 
In  the  agonizing  present." 

Much  of  the  optimism  of  the  past  has  been  of  this 
unsatisfying  sort ;  and  it  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that 
it  often  should  have  been  impatiently  and  scornfully 
rejected  as  failing  to  compass  the  facts  of  life.  The 
pessimism  of  the  last  century,  with  all  its  exaggera- 
tion, at  least  did  a  real  service  in  forcing  men  to  open 
their  eyes  and  look  facts  in  the  face.  In  so  far  as  we 
take  pessimism,  then,  simply  as  an  insistence  that 
evil  is  a  part  of  experience  which  cannot  be  ignored, 
it  must  have  its  place  in  any  complete  philosophy. 
But  if  it  is  regarded  as  a  final  account  of  things,  it  is 
at  least  equally  one-sided  with  a  blind  optimism. 
Indeed,  except  for  that  intellectual  perversity  which 
delights  in  the  exaggeration  of  a  partial  truth,  es- 
pecially in  opposition  to  some  well-worn  common- 
place, a  thorough-going  pessimism  would  hardly 
be  a  possibility.  It  is  therefore  not  altogether  profit- 
able to  try  to  take  it  too  seriously,  or  to  expect 
it  to  be  fully  open  to  argument.  Back  of  it  there 
is  always  a  peculiar  emotional  set,  due  largely  to 
temperament,  or  to  an  unfortunate  combination  of 
experiences.  In  either  case  it  is  more  a  matter  of 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  237 

feeling  than  of  reason,  and  often  the  physician  can 
meet  it  better  than  the  philosopher.  Still  if  the 
pessimist  does  enter  the  arena  of  argument,  and  is 
willing  to  view  fairly  the  wider  facts  of  experience, 
uncolored  by  his  own  private  bias  from  life,  he  can 
hardly  refuse  to  modify  considerably  the  absolute- 
ness of  his  claims. 

For  if  it  is  impossible  to  merge  the  ills  of  life 
unreservedly  in  the  good,  it  is  equally  impossible  to 
deny  the  presence  of  a  large  intermixture  of  good 
amid  surrounding  ills.  All  attempts  to  deny  a 
positive  quality  to  the  good  in  human  life  are 
mere  tamperings  with  the  facts  in  the  interests  of 
a  prejudiced  conclusion.  There  is  not  one  of  the 
arguments  advanced  to  prove  the  non-existence  of 
such  a  positive  content  of  good  in  human  life  which 
will  at  all  bear  scrutiny.  It  has  been  a  favorite 
theory,  for  example,  that  pleasure  is  nothing  positive, 
but  in  reality  only  the  absence  of  pain,  the  relief 
which  we  feel  when  pain  is  relaxed  or  removed. 
Modern  psychology  may  be  said  definitely  to  have 
set  aside  such  a  contention,  if  indeed  it  needed  refu- 
tation in  the  face  of  its  lack  of  correspondence  with 
the  most  obvious  testimony  of  experience.  Quite 
as  ineffective  are  appeals  to  the  supposed  trivialness 
and  lack  of  finality  in  life,  its  failure  to  meet  certain 
tests  of  worth,  in  proof  of  the  assertion  that  it  is 
worth  nothing  at  all.  Schopenhauer  is  particularly 
skilful  in  marshalling  such  considerations.  He  re- 
minds us  that  life  is  a  constant  struggle  for  main- 


238        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

tenance,  a  ceaseless  treadmill  of  work  and  duty 
which  seemingly  leads  nowhere,  an  attaining  of 
desire  only  to  have  new  wants  open  up  before  us. 
Now  if  the  pessimist  means  no  more  than  to  assert, 
"I  don't  see  anything  worth  while  in  all  this;  it 
only  bores  me,"  there  is  probably  nothing  to  be  said. 
He  is  a  pessimist  largely  because  he  is  so  easily  bored. 
But  if  he  means  that  no  one  else  takes  any  more  in- 
terest in  it  that  he  himself,  he  is  contradicted  by  the 
plainest  facts.  This  very  round  of  living  with  all 
its  petty  details  is  a  thing  which  many  people  find 
vastly  interesting.  It  may  be  true  that  desires  at- 
tained only  open  up  new  wants,  and  lead  to  no  final 
goal.  But  in  the  process  of  satisfying  them  there 
is  pleasure  nevertheless.  And  it  is  the  very  con- 
dition of  future  pleasure  that  with  their  satisfaction 
all  desire  should  not  thereby  come  to  an  end.  To 
look  at  desire  as  primarily  painful  is  untrue  to  the 
facts.  It  is  this  only  as  its  prospect  of  satisfaction 
is  too  greatly  hindered.  So  a  very  sad  case  indeed 
may  be  made  out  for  mankind  chained  down  for- 
ever to  the  grinding  task  of  meeting  over  and  over 
again  its  insistent  needs,  if  work  is  essentially  pain- 
ful and  an  evil.  But  this  can  be  denied  outright. 
Some  kinds  of  work  are  painful,  it  is  true.  But 
work  itself,  work  that  occupies  us  and  calls  out  our 
real  powers,  is  the  necessary  precondition  of  a  pleas- 
ant life,  in  spite  of  its  frequent  drawbacks.  In  a 
word,  the  trouble  is  not  with  life  itself,  but  with  the 
way  in  which  we  meet  life.  And  however  inconceiv- 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  239 

able  it  may  seem  to  one  who  views  it  with  jaundiced 
eyes,  it  remains  true  that  unsophisticated  people  do 
succeed  in  getting  a  good  deal  of  positive  enjoyment 
as  they  go  along,  and  enjoyment  too  from  precisely 
the  trivial  details  which  the  pessimist  sees  fraught 
with  such  potencies  of  evil  and  disillusionment. 

The  outcome,  then,  is  simply  this :  The  possibility 
of  a  life  which  is  felt  as  good  and  worthy  and  satis- 
fying is  not  only  not  excluded,  but  it  is  a  solid  fact 
of  experience.  That  man  is  indeed  unfortunate 
to  whom  there  have  not  come  moments  which  com- 
pensate for  many  trials.  And  if  we  look  at  the  life 
of  the  common  man,  unsated  by  a  superfluity  of 
sense  enjoyments,  and  too  busy  and  simple-minded 
to  be  cynical,  we  shall  often  find  an  abundance  of 
the  joy  of  living,  even  though  to  the  outsider  it  might 
seem  that  his  circumstances  had  not  very  much  in 
them  calling  for  felicitation.  This  is  not  to  deny 
the  evil,  pain,  and  ennui  which  make  many  lives  a 
burden,  and  which  come  in  some  measure  to  all,  even 
the  most  fortunate.  But  if  evil  is  there,  so  also  is 
good.  And  no  one  who  denies  the  good  is  in  a 
position  to  reason  about  life  and  sum  it  up  truly. 
Let  the  pessimist  turn  his  eyes  to  the  larger  world 
of  men,  and  no  matter  how  irrational  it  may  appear 
to  him,  how  little  real  cause  there  may  seem  for  it, 
the  fact  of  human  satisfaction  and  enjoyment  is 
undeniable.  The  widespread  prevalence  of  a  dis- 
position to  question  the  worth  of  living  belongs, 
historically,  either  to  an  artificial  and  more  or  less 


240         RELIGIOUS    CONCEPTION   OF  THE  WORLD 

corrupt  state  of  society,  in  which  the  stream  of  life 
has  been  diverted  from  its  natural  channels,  or  else 
to  exceptional  intellectual  conditions.  As  we  look 
back  upon  history,  we  find  that  a  capacity  for  getting 
enjoyment  has  been  not  infrequently  a  distinctive 
mark  of  the  age.  Even  if  we  in  modern  times  have 
come  to  be  too  wise  to  be  happy,  our  ancestors  were 
more  fortunate.  The  zest  of  life  is  characteristic 
of  the  great  periods  of  the  past,  wherever  there  were 
stirring  any  tendencies  that  made  for  real  signifi- 
cance. It  is  this  which  constitutes  for  us  the  peren- 
nial charm  of  certain  epochs  of  the  world's  life. 

Now  it  is  quite  true  —  and  this  needs  also  to  be 
kept  in  mind  —  that  in  such  periods  the  perfect  joy 
of  living  is  open  to  a  comparatively  few.  Along 
with  the  fair  picture  which  the  show  side  of  the  world 
presents,  there  is  the  great  submerged  mass  of  man- 
kind, the  serf,  the  slave,  the  common  worker,  whose 
life  is  often  brutalized,  narrow,  and  sordid  to  the  last 
degree.  We  tend  perhaps  to  look  away  from  this 
too  much.  And  a  large  part  of  the  light-heartedness 
and  frank  enjoyment  of  the  time  would  have  been 
impossible,  except  as  these  more  fortunate  souls  were 
able  to  ignore  the  misery  by  which  they  were  sur- 
rounded, and  to  take  their  course  undisturbed  by 
the  suffering  of  their  fellows.  It  is  getting  to  be 
impossible  for  us  to  do  this  any  longer.  The  social 
welfare,  in  which  " social"  is  interpreted  in  terms 
of  every  class  and  not  my  own  class  simply,  has  come 
to  be,  or  is  fast  becoming,  an  essential  element  in 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  241 

the  satisfaction  of  the  individual.  A  man  can  no 
longer  go  his  way  wholly  regardless  of  how  his  less 
successful  brother  is  faring.  His  imagination  has 
been  touched  by  the  vision  of  the  struggling  under- 
world, and  the  vision  once  caught  will  not  leave  him 
in  peace.  This  is  indeed  a  great  source  of  the 
worthier  pessimism  of  the  present.  In  the  past 
the  oppressive  sense  of  the  worthlessness  of  life  has 
commonly  been  due  to  satiety.  To-day  it  bases 
itself  in  some  considerable  degree  upon  the  great 
mass  of  suffering,  human  and  animal,  which  does 
not  for  the  most  part  bear  directly  upon  ourselves 
except  through  the  imagination  and  the  sympathy. 
But  now  this  very  fact,  for  any  large  view  of  the 
course  of  human  events,  is  enough  to  cast  doubt  upon 
the  judgment  that  life  is  ultimately  worthless.  The 
possibility  of  a  sane  and  cheerful,  even  a  joyous, 
view  of  life,  as  a  general  human  attitude,  lies  already 
in  the  experience  of  the  race.  Why  should  it  not 
be  possible  for  this  to  come  again  without  the  draw- 
backs attendant  upon  its  limited  range  and  its  com- 
parative blindness?  There  is  nothing  chimerical 
in  the  hope  except  on  the  supposition  that  the  incubus 
of  the  suffering  mass  of  humanity  is  an  unalterable 
and  necessary  fact.  If  it  once  were  possible  to  ex- 
tend to  all  men  the  opportunities  for  a  natural  and 
harmonious  life  which  now  are  possessed  by  the 
few,  that  which  is  perhaps  the  most  serious  bar  to 
the  modern  man's  enjoyment  of  life  would  be  re- 
moved. Such  an  issue  is  at  least  conceivable.  The 


242         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

necessary  precondition  of  it,  the  precondition  whose 
absence  made  it  impossible  in  the  past,  is  just  the 
recognition  of  the  need,  and  of  the  desirability  that 
it  should  be  met.  Such  a  recognition  is  growing 
every  day.  More  and  more  it  is  dominating  the 
consciousness  of  the  age.  And  with  all  the  powers 
of  men  consciously  set  to  work  to  realize  such  a 
consummation,  there  is  no  reason  to  despair  of  its 
gradual  attainment. 

The  considerations  which  have  just  been  suggested 
are  intended  primarily  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that 
pessimism,  as  a  declaration  that  no  value  in  life  is 
discoverable  by  man,  or  that  such  value  by  the  nature 
of  the  case  is  necessarily  excluded,  is  not  by  any 
means  justified.  Men  have  found  life  to  be  good. 
When  certain  conditions  have  been  fulfilled,  faith  in 
life  has  been  deep  and  general.  Pessimism,  when 
it  has  been  at  all  widespread,  has  had  historical 
reasons.  It  is  the  result  of  an  artificial  attitude 
toward  life,  or  it  has  sprung  from  a  pressing  call  upon 
the  sympathies  due  to  human  conditions  which  we 
can  easily  conceive  as  remediable,  or  it  is  the  out- 
come of  some  other  disturbing  and  unessential  con- 
dition. But  this  also  gives  an  indication  of  the 
direction  in  which  to  look  for  the  object  of  our  wider 
search.  Any  practically  valuable  assertion  of  opti- 
mism which  looks  facts  in  the  face  must  avoid  the 
extremes  either  of  despair,  or  of  an  ill-advised  and 
light-hearted  confidence  that  affairs  are  sure  any- 
how to  turn  out  all  right.  In  other  words,  an  opti- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  243 

mism  which  understands  itself  will  never  say :  Things 
are  as  they  should  be;  everything  is  for  the  best  in 
this  best  of  all  possible  worlds.  It  will  rather  say: 
Things  can  be  made  right ;  and  I  have  enough  con- 
fidence in  the  possibility  to  induce  me  to  go  to  work 
forthwith  to  bring  it  about.  True  optimism  on  the 
practical  side  is  not  a  statement  of  what  is,  but  of 
what  ought  to  be  and  can  be.  It  is  a  matter  of  faith 
and  will,  rather  than  an  account  of  what  here  and 
now  we  find  existing.  It  emphasizes  the  human 
element,  the  presence  within  the  situation  of  the  man 
who  is  pronouncing  judgment,  as  the  fundamental 
factor  on  which  it  all  hinges;  and  it  has  for  him 
the  definitely  practical  value  that  it  is  the  thing  which 
makes  possible  the  actual  realization  of  his  faith  and 
desire.  As  a  mere  judgment  of  fact  it  not  only  lacks 
this  value,  but  it  sets  a  positive  hindrance  in  the  way 
of  such  a  realization.  To  take  the  good  as  already 
achieved  once  for  all,  to  face  apparent  evils  with 
simple  acquiescence,  content  with  the  pious  hope  that 
somehow  they  are  all  for  the  best,  is  an  attitude  pro- 
foundly immoral.  Even  pessimism  is  more  attrac- 
tive than  this,  for  pessimism  does  at  least  show  that 
it  has  sympathies  to  be  touched.  It  is  optimism 
of  this  sort  which,  even  more  than  its  flabby  intellec- 
tual grasp,  condemns  a  popular  movement  such  as 
Christian  Science  in  some  of  its  forms,  by  render- 
ing it,  in  its  practical  outcome,  callous  and  self- 
centred. 
So  much  for  the  practical  side  of  optimism.  And 


244        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

the  suggestion  which  this  contains  will  determine 
the  direction  of  a  more  speculative  attempt  at  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  evil.  Any  complete 
solution  must  indeed,  I  think,  go  beyond  a  mere 
appeal  to  what  ought  to  be  in  the  future.  It  must 
somehow  be  able  to  state  that  reality  is  at  bottom 
the  triumph  of  the  good,  that  there  is  an  eternal 
realization  of  right  and  nullifying  of  evil.  But  this 
cannot  in  the  least  mean  that  now  at  any  particular 
moment  the  good  is  achieved.  Such  a  conclusion 
would  involve  the  mixing  of  two  radically  distinct 
points  of  view  —  the  temporal  and  the  eternal. 
Concretely,  reality  can  only  be  stated  by  us  in  terms 
of  progressive  accomplishment,  and  "now"  implies 
location  within  this  stream  of  time.  The  justifi- 
cation of  evil  therefore  lies,  for  man,  in  the  possi- 
bility of  making  it  significant  for  a  process  in  which, 
however,  it  is  overcome,  and  compelled  to  serve 
as  a  means  to  good.  The  most  serious  difficulties 
about  the  question  of  evil  come  from  neglecting  this 
essentially  dynamic  and  developing  character  of 
reality,  and  so  the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution  has 
been  of  a  good  deal  of  help  toward  clearing  up  the 
situation.  In  terms  of  evolution,  moral  evil  at  least 
might  perhaps  be  defined  on  its  positive  side  as  an 
achievement  which  forgets  that  its  whole  right  to 
exist  is  dependent  upon  a  willingness  to  sacrifice  its 
own  finality  in  the  interest  of  some  new  step  in  ad- 
vance, and  which  thus  by  its  determination  to  stay 
just  as  it  is  blocks  the  way  to  future  progress.  On 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  245 

such  a  showing,  evil  would  be  in  its  inception  no  ar- 
bitrary or  unintelligible  thing.  It  would  represent, 
indeed,  normally,  and  perhaps  universally,  something 
which  was,  looked  at  merely  in  the  light  of  past  his- 
tory, at  some  point  of  time  a  positive  attainment  of 
good.  It  is  a  commonplace  nowadays  that  those 
human  passions  and  practices  which  we  brand  as 
vices  are  often  a  survival  into  changed  social  condi- 
tions of  what  in  more  primitive  and  barbarous  times 
were  esteemed  as  virtues,  and  which  were  in  reality 
quite  essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  tribe  or  com- 
munity. So  the  temper  of  mind  which  leads  to 
crimes  of  violence,  to-day  only  a  menace  to  society, 
was  often  needed  for  the  rougher  work  of  an  earlier 
and  more  turbulent  era ;  and  the  hint  of  the  former 
value  lies  in  the  tribute  of  admiration,  unwilling 
oftentimes,  which  it  still  has  the  power  to  evoke. 
Or  one  might  cite  the  well-worn  instance  of  slavery, 
which  in  its  origin  was  a  clear  step  in  advance  over 
the  older  and  summary  practice  of  slaughtering  all 
prisoners  of  war.  It  is  possible  to  see  the  process 
of  transition  going  on  at  the  present  day,  and  the 
gradual  shifting  of  moral  values  which  is  its  outcome. 
The  limitation  in  the  range  of  patriotic  feeling, 
necessary  in  the  beginnings  of  national  development, 
showing  itself  as  a  narrow  and  ill-tempered  jingoism 
now  that  a  wider  outlook  is  demanded  in  the  inter- 
ests even  of  national  welfare;  personal  loyalty  to 
leaders  becoming  the  blind  and  complacent  bulwark 
pf  corruption  and  roguery  in  politics;  the  vision  of 


246         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

religious  truth  crystallizing  into  dogmas  and  setting 
itself  to  prevent  any  more  truth  from  being  seen,  - 
such  things  as  these  lead  clearly  to  the  recognition 
that  what  we  call  evils  represent  no  fixed  group  of 
facts  standing  out  in  hard  and  fast  isolation  from 
all  other  facts,  but  that  any  stage  in  human  growth 
may  turn  to  evil  if  it  fails  to  recognize  the  true  con- 
ditions that  growth  involves.  If  it  means  that  growth 
has  stopped,  if  it  takes  a  partial  attainment  not  as 
indeed  partial  and  temporary  and  transitive,  but  as 
a  substitute  for  what  is  final,  and  therefore  as  a 
hindrance  to  the  better  that  is  still  to  come,  and  for 
which  it  should  have  been  a  preparation,  then,  no 
matter  how  admirable  it  may  once  have  been,  and 
how  confidently  we  who  represent  it  may  class  our- 
selves among  the  saints  and  not  among  the  sinners, 
the  root  of  the  morally  bad  is  in  us.  "The  greatest 
enemy  of  the  best  is  the  good."  But  now  while 
this  enables  us  to  avoid  difficulties  which  would  beset 
us  if  we  were  compelled  to  regard  evil  as  an  ultimate 
metaphysical  existence  or  entity,  it  does  not  give 
us  the  right  to  deny  that  evil  is  a  very  real  fact  in 
the  world.  Rather  it  forbids  such  a  denial.  Evil 
is  a  reality.  It  stands  for  what  taken  in  itself  is  not 
good,  but  evil  —  something  to  be  hated,  and  if  pos- 
sible ( crushed  out  and  brought  to  nothing.  It  is 
not  so,  that  whatever  is,  is  right.  A  thing  may  be 
here  and  now  which  distinctly  is  not  right.  It  must 
be  recognized  clearly  as  existing,  and  as  evil.  To  say 
that  reality  is  good  is  at  least  misleading.  Reality  is 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  247 

good  only  as  it  is  a  process  of  becoming  good,  of 
righting  wrongs.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  while  evil 
is  real,  it  is  not  the  most  real  thing.  It  exists  as  evil 
if  we  take  it  by  itself ;  but  we  have  no  right  thus  to 
take  it.  It  is  not  an  independent  existence,  but  part 
of  a  larger  reality.  This  reality  is  the  process  in 
which  evil  is  overcome,  which  process  alone  we  have 
the  right  to  call  good  without  limitation;  and  by 
being  thus  overcome,  it  helps  to  a  fuller  consumma- 
tion. A  subordination  of  this  sort  must,  it  would 
seem,  indicate  the  only  way  to  a  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem :  do  we  have  the  right  to  maintain  that  what  it 
requires  is  in  fact  a  truth  of  experience  ? 

Let  me  point  out  once  more  the  danger  of  pre- 
tending to  a  completeness  of  insight  which  we  do  not 
possess.  Any  possible  answer  we  can  give  is  bound 
to  come  short  of  the  finality  which  at  times  the  feel- 
ings demand.  It  is  presumptuous  on  the  one  hand  to 
pretend  that  we  can  in  all  particular  cases  show  how 
good  comes  out  of  evil.  Over  and  over  again  in 
man's  experience  there  come  apparent  catastrophes 
which  at  least  for  the  time  seem  wholly  dispropor- 
tionate to  any  useful  result  that  they  can  serve. 
We  rebel  against  the  frigid  attempts  at  consolation 
which  bid  us  see  the  hand  of  Providence  in  so  over- 
whelming a  calamity,  and  feel  that  they  represent 
the  easy  resignation  of  one  who  is  himself  out  in  the 
sunlight.  A  philosophical  justification  of  evil  can 
deal  only  in  general  statements,  and  so  it  cannot  hope 
to  put  in  our  hands  the  clew  to  every  sorrow,  or 


248        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

to  be  the  solvent  of  each  experience  of  evil  in 
particular. 

Again,  there  is  a  further  limitation  to  the  power 
of  a  reasoned  explanation  of  evil  which,  though 
practically  of  less  importance,  is  perhaps  for  theory 
rather  more  fundamental.  If  I  may  anticipate 
a  little,  it  is  fairly  evident  that  such  a  justification 
will  be  likely  to  follow  two  general  lines.  Certain 
apparent  evils  are,  it  may  be  argued,  really  beneficent, 
because  in  the  actually  existing  state  of  affairs  they 
serve  as  preventives  of  still  greater  ills.  The  sen- 
sitiveness to  pain  which  the  eye  possesses  is,  e.g., 
a  guard  against  more  serious  injuries.  Or  again, 
evil  may  be  justified  because  it  contributes  directly 
to  some  positive  good,  in  particular  to  certain  de- 
sirable traits  of  character  which  need  the  stress  of 
conflict  before  they  can  be  matured. 

Now  such  considerations,  in  so  far  as  they  repre- 
sent real  facts  of  experience,  are  worthy  of  all  re- 
spect. It  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  however,  that  both 
of  them  rest  upon  the  supposition  that  the  world 
is  of  a  certain  determinate  nature.  If  things  are 
as  they  are,  then  it  may  perhaps  be  unavoidable  that 
evil  should  exist  in  order  that  the  highest  possible 
good  may  be  realized.  But  if  any  one  should  see 
fit  to  ask,  Why  might  not  the  world  have  been  differ- 
ent, so  different  as  to  attain  the  same  results  without 
the  stress  and  strain  which  is  now  required?  I  do 
not  see  that  there  is  any  way  of  excluding  the  ad- 
mission of  this  idea  as  a  possibility.  To  be  sure,  it 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  249 

cannot  be  proved  that  ours  is  not  the  best  of  possible 
worlds.  It  cannot  be  shown  with  any  measure  of 
precision  that  a  certain  amount  of  evil  is  not  abso- 
lutely necessary  in  order  to  get  what  on  the  whole 
are  the  best  results.  The  enormous  complexity 
of  the  data,  and  the  completely  unmanageable  char- 
acter of  any  hypothesis  which  professes  to  introduce 
fundamental  changes  into  the  facts  as  we  know  them, 
make  it  forever  impossible  that  we  should  attain 
to  anything  save  the  merest  guesses.  One  can  say 
with  the  Griffin  in  Mr.  Stockton's  tale:  "If  some 
things  were  different,  other  things  would  be  other- 
wise"; and  that  is  about  all  he  can  say,  unless 
he  recognizes  frankly  that  he  has  left  the  realm 
of  reasoning  for  that  of  the  unchecked  imagi- 
nation. 

But  for  the  same  reason,  it  cannot  be  proved  that  a 
mixed  world  of  good  and  evil  is  the  only  possible  one. 
In  point  of  fact,  in  so  far  as  we  can  manage  the  data 
at  all,  I  cannot  see  that  it  is  by  any  means  inconceiv- 
able that  the  world  might  have  been  a  world  without 
pain  or  sin,  while  yet  conserving  all  essential  values 
that  actually  exist.  It  surely  is  in  the  abstract 
supposable  that  the  physical  world  might  have 
been  built  with  special  reference  to  safeguarding  the 
physical  well-being  of  man  at  every  point.  It  is 
conceivable,  as  Mr.  Ingersoll  put  it,  that  health  in- 
stead of  disease  should  have  been  made  catching; 
and  taken  solely  in  itself,  such  an  arrangement 
would  appeal  to  us  as  an  improvement.  To  be  sure, 


2$0        RELIGIONS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

a  world  built  on  this  plan  would  not  develop  those 
traits  of  self-reliance,  prudence,  courage,  which  the 
present  one  does.  But  this  again  is  assuming  that 
our  human  nature  is  a  given  fact  which  could  not 
have  been  different  from  what  it  is.  Suppose,  how- 
ever, we  had  been  eternally  that  which  we  now  be- 
come only  by  a  process  of  growth.  Suppose  we  had 
been  born  with  achieved  self-knowledge,  with  per- 
fect poise  of  character,  with  developed  love  to  man- 
kind and  a  tempered  unselfishness  of  action.  Would 
not  a  social  order  composed  of  such  beings  appeal 
to  us  naturally  as  a  more  desirable  world  than  the 
one  in  which  we  live?  If  not,  why  are  we  all  the 
time  working  to  bring  such  a  world  about?  For 
it  is  not  the  fact  of  having  failed  or  sinned  which 
is  desirable.  It  is  the  self-knowledge  for  which  this 
is  the  occasion,  and  the  fact  that  thus  we  may  be- 
come stronger  and  wiser,  more  tolerant  and  sym- 
pathetic. And  if  we  could  have  been  all  this  without 
the  pain  and  loss,  is  it  not  possible  that  we  should 
feel  we  were  the  gainers? 

For  such  a  speculation  does  not  imply  that  we 
are  looking  to  a  state  where  everything  has  been 
won  and  nothing  is  left  to  do.  There  might  still  be 
action,  and  action  for  worthy  ends.  But  it  would 
be  action  from  which  there  was  struck  out  all  weak- 
ness of  will,  conflict  of  motive,  imperfection  of  insight. 
There  is  an  attainment  of  ends  which  does  not  in- 
volve evils  to  overcome  or  mistakes  to  outlive ;  there 
are  normal  activities  which  do  not  need  the  spur  of 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  251 

wretchedness  and  pain.  Otherwise  we  should  have 
to  consider  the  life  which  has  reached  conditions 
of  comparative  moral  stability  as  in  itself  less  worth 
while  than  one  which  is  still  in  the  stage  of  learning 
by  sin  and  failure.  Or,  in  another  sphere,  surely 
the  artist  —  the  musician,  for  example  —  does  not 
find  his  enjoyment  of  the  artistic  activity  greatly 
increased  by  the  possibility  of  making  mistakes  and 
discords.  At  any  rate,  if  the  partial  yielding  to  evil 
and  the  fight  against  odds  in  one's  own  moral  nature 
is  essential  to  blessedness,  we  should  have  to  deny 
felicity  to  God.  If  now  reality  were  so  constituted 
that  we  all  were  gods  in  miniature,  with  the  quali- 
ties that  evolution  has  tended  to  develop  in  us 
already  safely  secured  beyond  danger  of  fail,  why 
should  we  not  have  a  world  in  which  the  essential 
benefits  that  we  attribute  to  evil  would  be  conserved, 
while  also  there  would  be  none  of  the  attending  dis- 
advantages? Once  more,  this  world  would  only  be 
possible  in  case  growth  as  we  know  it  were  absent 
-  growth,  that  is,  in  character  and  self-knowledge. 
But  this  conceivably  might  be  the  case  so  far  as  we 
are  able  to  see.  And  at  least  the  first  impression 
would  appear  to  be  that  it  would  constitute  a  better 
world. 

But  while  we  thus  can  fancy  a  world  which,  if 
we  had  had  the  making  of  it,  would  have  been  a  bet- 
ter world  than  this,  and  so  while  the  theoretical 
possibility  of  condemning  this  world  is  left  open,  it 
must  be  recognized,  on  the  other  hand,  that  such 


252         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

speculations  are  practically  without  value.  The 
amusement  of  world-building  is  a  somewhat  trivial 
one.  Reality  is  what  we  find  it.  We  are  beings 
who  in  point  of  fact  are  imperfect,  and  who  have 
by  a  laborious  process  to  win  for  ourselves  whatever 
of  permanent  good  we  are  to  possess.  And  of  this 
imperfection  evil  is  apparently  a  necessary  outcome. 
It  is  the  mark  of  an  impractical  and  feeble  mind  to 
rebel  against  necessity,  and  soothe  itself  by  dreams 
of  what  might  be  if  things  wholly  out  of  our  control 
were  only  different.  Any  sane  theory,  either  of 
optimism  or  pessimism,  is  bound  to  give  up  wild 
speculations,  and  confine  itself  to  the  facts  of  experi- 
ence. It  is  not  a  question  of  abstract  possibility, 
but  of  common  sense.  And  within  this  limitation, 
the  question  which  meets  us  is  a  definite  one. 
Do  we,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  find  that  in  any 
large  and  general  way  evil  has  in  it  the  seeds  of 
good?  Does  experience  itself  teach  the  lesson  that 
the  ills  of  life  are,  given  human  nature  as  we  know 
it,  of  vital  and  necessary  importance  for  the  at- 
tainment of  the  results  which  appeal  to  us  as 
highest  ? 

I  believe  that  any  wide  experience  that  is  reason- 
ably normal  must  answer  the  question  in  the  affirma- 
tive. It  is  surely  a  truth  which  comes  home  again 
and  again  in  our  lives,  that  the  deepest  sense  of  the 
worth  of  life  grows  out  of  its  sorrows  and  defeats. 
It  is  thus  we  get  that  testing  of  our  strength  which 
is  the  condition  of  strength  itself.  It  is  thus  that  we 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  253 

come  to  measure  the  relative  worth  of  what  life 
offers,  to  see  and  condemn  the  trivial  and  paltry,  and 
to  appreciate  the  real  meaning  of  the  weightier  ends 
which  approve  themselves  to  our  striving.  It  is  to 
this  that  are  due  the  fruits  of  tenderness  and  pity, 
sympathy  and  love,  in  the  form  in  which  they  mark 
the  development  of  the  ideal  of  character  which  we 
call  Christian.  Once  more,  these  results  do  not 
flow  of  their  own  accord  and  mechanically.  It  is 
the  human  reaction  to  them,  not  the  brute  fact  of 
evil  itself,  which  is  responsible  for  the  issue.  And 
this  reaction  does  not  always  come.  The  fruits  of 
suffering  may  for  the  individual  be  bitterness  and 
rebellion.  But  again,  it  is  ourselves  who  are  at 
fault.  There  is  no  evil  which  does  not  have  the 
possibility  of  good  within  it,  if  we  are  only  ready  to 
accept  this  possibility.  This  is  a  truth  which  the 
experience  of  a  multitude  of  men  will  bear  out. 
This  very  attitude  toward  life  is  itself  one  of  the 
finest  and  most  significant  products  of  evolution. 
The  spirit  which  does  not  exhaust  itself  in  impotent 
rebellion  against  the  inevitable,  but  which  accepts 
limitations  and  drawbacks,  in  so  far  as  they  are  un- 
avoidable, in  order  to  make  out  of  the  opportunities 
which  do  offer  the  very  best  it  can,  is  the  spirit  which 
in  a  special  measure  is  prophetic  of  good  for  the  race. 
And  this  spirit,  whose  possession  is  the  guarantee 
that  suffering  will  be  utilized  and  turned  to  good, 
is  itself  the  result  of  the  education  of  suffering. 
Fashioned  in  its  beginnings  by  a  more  or  lessmechani- 


254         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

cal  and  blind  experience,  it  becomes  at  last  the  con- 
scious tool  for  getting  the  complete  kernel  of  good 
which  evil  contains. 

So  that  the  complete  justification  of  evil  is  not  to 
be  looked  for  in  those  fruits  of  righteousness  which 
come  to  a  partial  and  somewhat  forced  ripening  in 
an  earlier  experience,  but  rather  to  the  final  con- 
summation of  the  process  of  experience,  the  possi- 
bility of  which  exists  in  the  earlier  stages,  but  exists 
only  implicitly.  For  already  in  the  highest  attain- 
ment of  man  there  is  at  least  the  promise  of  that 
ripened  product  of  human  character  which,  because 
it  so  wills,  can  make  its  circumstances  tributary  to 
good,  no  matter  what  their  crude  form  may  be. 
And  when  once  this  attitude  is  reached, — when  man 
has  been  schooled  by  events  to  a  true  practicalism 
or  realism  which  blinks  no  fact  of  experience ;  which 
accepts  these  facts  freely  as  the  raw  material  of  its 
action,  without  losing  itself  in  dreams  of  what  might 
have  been ;  which  refuses  to  live  in  a  fool's  paradise 
where  truth  is  subordinated  to  our  wishes ;  and  which 
yet  in  spite  of  all  this  sees  in  these  same  facts,  ugly 
and  hard  though  at  first  they  may  appear,  the  mat- 
ter for  a  complete  remodelling;  which  finds  in  the 
real  the  ideal  present,  not  indeed  as  a  finished  result, 
but  as  that  which  the  human  will  is  determined  to 
make  out  of  the  real, — then  we  have  the  possibility 
of  the  practical  optimism  of  which  I  have  been  speak- 
ing. And  the  justification  of  evil-lies  in  this:  that 
the  spirit  of  practical  optimism,  arising  itself  out  of 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  255 

the  process  of  experience,  is  the  prophet  of  its  own 
success,  and  of  the  actual  attainment  of  the  good 
objectively  in  the  world. 

This  capacity  for  regarding  good,  not  as  an  inde- 
feasible possession  of  attained  happiness,  but  as  the 
power  of  creating  good  even  out  of  conditions  that 
appear  adverse,  is  what  constitutes  one  of  the  main 
points  of  superiority  of  the  modern  spirit  over  the 
ancient.  It  is  here  that  one  of  the  striking  weak- 
nesses is  to  be  found  in  that  which  was  the  highest 
civilization  that  the  ancient  world  produced.  The 
Greek  spirit  and  genius  was  one  which  bloomed  in 
sunshine.  The  Greeks  never  had  any  assured  con- 
viction of  the  power  of  man  to  conquer  misfortunes, 
much  less  to  turn  them  to  his  gain.  Even  the  Stoic 
stopped  short  with  the  ability  of  the  will  to  nullify 
evil  and  pain  and  render  it  indifferent.  For  the  com- 
mon view,  he  alone  is  happy  who  has  escaped  the 
bufferings  of  fortune.  Since  therefore  his  happiness 
lies  in  that  which  is  without  him,  he  has  never  any 
security  against  wretchedness,  and  no  one  can  fairly 
call  him  fortunate  till  death  puts  it  out  of  the  power 
of  chance  to  harm  him.  And  so  for  the  Greek  mind 
in  the  last  analysis  it  is  fate  which  is  the  final  arbiter 
of  man's  destiny.  The  popular  doctrine  of  fate  is  at 
bottom  nothing  but  the  shadow  of  man's  immaturity, 
and  his  failure  to  attain  to  the  mastery  of  himself  and 
of  his  life  through  the  ability  to  direct  to  his  own 
ends  the  chances  that  befall  him.  The  root  of  the 
Greek  emphasis  on  fate  lies  not  so  much  in  any 


256        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

profundity  of  insight,  as  in  that  same  temper  which 
makes,  for  example,  the  typical  Greek  hero  so  child- 
ish at  times,  according  to  the  modern  standard,  when 
misfortunes  and  suffering  are  concerned.  This 
may  be  excusable ;  but  it  is  the  attitude  of  the  child, 
and  not  the  man.  It  marks  an  immaturity  of  char- 
acter, and  a  conception  of  the  world  which  flows 
from  it  is  not  to  be  taken  too  seriously.  From  the 
Greek  point  of  view  life  is  good  only  so  long  as  it  is 
good  automatically.  Misfortune  is  an  evil  —  it  is 
nothing  but  an  evil ;  and  so  soon  as  it  intrudes  itself, 
we  have  to  alter  our  whole  judgment.  Fate,  then, 
rules  the  world,  since  the  issues  of  life  lie  outside  any 
purposes  of  ours.  And  fate  is  in  the  end  surer  to 
bring  evil  than  good ;  at  any  rate  the  chance  of  this 
clouds  all  our  life.  At  any  moment  there  is  likely 
to  arise  that  which  will  make  a  man  curse  the  day 
he  came  into  the  world.  In  spite  therefore  of  all 
the  brightness  of  the  Greek  life,  the  doom  of  fate 
hovers  over  it  and  fills  it  with  a  pervading  sense  of 
melancholy  even  where  we  are  least  on  the  lookout 
for  it.  Modern  thought  has  tended  to  lose  the  sense 
of  fate  because  there  is  in  the  modern  character 
that  which  refuses  to  be  daunted  by  evil.  It  takes 
evil,  not  as  a  given  fact,  but  as  something  which  is 
capable  of  being  transformed,  and  made  to  be  that 
which  we  choose  to  have  it  be.  It  does  not  find 
the  world  good  or  bad.  It  sets  out  to  make  the 
world  good,  and  it  is  able  to  do  this  because  it  has 
the  source  of  good  within  a  self  who  can  master 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  257 

events.  With  the  creation  of  the  possibility  of  such 
a  character  the  philosophy  of  optimism  is  justified, 
and  the  world  in  its  essence  shows  itself  to  be  that 
which  we  demand  of  it. 

There  is,  then,  purely  as  a  matter  of  experience,  a 
part  which  evil  plays  in  the  attaining  of  the  good, 
and  a  part  which  is  necessary,  apparently,  in  the  ac- 
tually existing  structure  of  the  world  and  of  man's 
nature.  Let  me  return  once  more  to  this  last  limita- 
tion. The  admission  has  been  made  that  it  is  not 
impossible  to  imagine  a  world  without  intermixture 
of  evil.  And  the  only  reply  to  this  seemed  to  be 
that  it  is  our  business  to  try  to  understand  reality 
as  we  find  it,  rather  than  engage  in  dreams  of  what 
might  have  been  had  reality  been  different.  But 
now  there  is  one  thing  further  that  may  be  said. 
The  special  sting  of  the  admission,  for  religion,  lies 
in  the  implication  that  our  world  was  created  by  a 
being  who  might  equally  as  well  have  made  it  quite 
other  than  it  is.  Indeed,  if  he  is  an  all-powerful 
being,  there  is  no  limit  to  the  possibilities  which  he 
had  before  him,  and  therefore  it  is  more  than  a  mere 
chance  that  evil  might  have  been  avoided;  it  is  an 
apparent  certainty.  Accordingly  we  are  met  by 
the  great  historic  problem  of  God's  responsibility 
for  evil.  If  God  could  have  created  the  world  with- 
out evil,  how  can  we  make  this  consistent  with  his 
perfect  goodness? 

The  answer  which  I  should  make  to  this  particular 
difficulty  lies  in  the  conception  that  has  already  been 


258         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

advanced.  The  difficulty  seems  to  be  due  to  the 
initial  mistake  of  regarding  God,  in  his  separate  exist- 
ence, as  alone  ultimately  real,  and  the  world  as  the 
mere  indeterminate  product  of  his  arbitrary  will. 
I  have  tried  to  argue  that  we  as  human  selves  are 
metaphysically  just  as  ultimate  as  God.  Reality  is 
the  whole  system  of  selves.  If  we  are  conditioned 
by  God's  life,  so  too  we  condition  it  in  turn.  It  is 
to  the  fact  that  our  natures  are  what  they  are  that 
the  necessity  of  evil  is  due  —  natures  that  are  un- 
developed at  the  start,  and  that  can  only  attain  to 
wisdom  and  stability  of  character  by  a  gradual 
process  of  growth.  And  our  natures  are  not  pro- 
duced by  an  arbitrary  fiat;  they  are  ultimate  con- 
stituents of  reality.  There  never  was  a  time,  then, 
when  God  might  possibly  have  chosen  a  wholly 
different  world  but  failed  to  do  this.  The  world  is, 
and  the  question  of  responsibility  has  no  meaning 
in  such  a  connection.  Otherwise  God  might  have 
been  different  from  what  he  is ;  for  if  he  had  chosen 
a  different  world,  it  could  only  have  been  because 
he  was  a  different  God.  A  God  with  a  determinate 
nature  can  have  no  limitless  number  of  possibilities 
open  before  him,  of  some  of  which  he  fails  to  take 
advantage.  And  since  this  is  so,  there  is  no  neces- 
sary contradiction  between  God's  goodness,  and  the 
presence  of  evil  in  the  world.  It  is,  once  more,  a 
question  simply  of  accepting  reality  as  it  reveals  it- 
self. And  if  we  find  that  as  a  fact  of  experience  evil 
is  only  a  vanishing  stage  in  a  developing  process,  we 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 


259 


have  the  right  to  maintain  that  the  world  is  in  its 
essential  nature  good. 

This  is,  of  course,  in  one  sense  of  the  word  to 
deny  the  infinity  of  God.  It  denies  infinity,  that  is, 
in  the  sense  in  which  this  is  synonymous  with  an 
absolutely  indeterminate  range  of  possibilities.  The 
possible  lies  within  a  definite  circle,  and  ultimately 
is  identical  with  the  real.  The  real  is  determinate 
in  its  nature.  But  for  this  very  reason  we  are  not 
to  conceive  of  God  as  setting  certain  other  possi- 
bilities before  his  imagination  and  then  realizing 
his  impotence  to  attain  these.  That  is  what  we  are 
likely  to  have  in  mind  when  we  think  of  determinate- 
ness  of  nature  as  somehow  less  excellent  than  an 
infinity  of  opportunities  unrealized,  but  possible. 
But  such  an  impotence  we  do  not  have  to  maintain. 
There  is  no  limitation  in  being  shut  out  from  doing 
that  which  one  has  absolutely  no  desire  to  do  or 
thought  of  doing.  The  only  sort  of  absolute  ex- 
perience which  is  worth  while  is  one,  not  of  an 
absence  of  determination  and  definiteness,  but  of  a 
self-completeness  and  inner  perfection  which  lacks 
no  possibility  of  satisfaction.  I  have  attempted  to 
vindicate  this  for  the  conception  of  God.  The 
possibilities  which  are  unreal  for  his  experience  are 
absolutely  unreal.  There  is  no  basis  whatever  for 
them  in  his  nature,  and  therefore  in  reality.  The 
ability  so  much  as  to  conceive  them  implies  a  failure 
in  the  completeness  of  experience  which  is  excluded 
by  the  nature  of  the  conception,  just  as  in  human  life 


260        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

we  indulge  in  day  dreams  and  construct  airy  fabrics 
of  what  might  possibly  be,  only  as  the  business  of 
everyday  reality  fails  for  some  reason  in  its  normal 
healthy  power  to  absorb  and  satisfy  us. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   IMMORTALITY 

THERE  is,  without  doubt,  at  the  present  day  a 
strong  inclination  in  many  quarters  to  dispute  the 
importance  of  a  belief  in  immortality  both  for  the 
practical  conduct  of  life  and  for  our  intellectual 
constructions  about  the  nature  of  the  world.  I 
think  that  the  religious  feeling  of  mankind  is  truer 
here  than  the  current  tendencies.  Instead  of  stand- 
ing on  the  outskirts  of  the  philosopher's  task  as  at 
best  a  work  of  supererogation,  the  question  has,  in 
my  opinion,  a  distinct  relation  to  and  importance  for 
general  philosophical  results.  I  shall  therefore  in 
this  concluding  chapter  try  to  point  out  the  connec- 
tion which  the  problem  has  with  the  conception  of 
the  world  that  has  been  already  outlined  in  the  pre- 
ceding pages. 

And  as  a  means  of  approach  it  will  be  useful  first 
to  review  briefly  the  general  character  of  the  histor- 
ical proofs  for  the  belief.  It  lies  outside  my  purpose 
to  dwell  here  upon  the  specifically  Christian  proof 
from  revelation,  except  indeed  as  this  is  capable  of 
a  philosophical  statement.  When  Paul  speaks  of 
life  and  immortality  as  brought  to  light  through  the 
Gospel,  in  part  I  suppose  he  means  that  the  Chris- 
tian revelation  has  been  a  revelation  of  the  divine- 

261 


262         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

ness  of  human  life,  and  that  no  one  therefore  to 
whom  this  has  once  come  home  can  doubt  that  life 
is  a  permanent  fact  in  God's  universe.  In  so  far 
this  will  enter  into  what  I  shall  have  to  say  later  on. 
But  certainly  Paul  also  had  in  mind  the  historical 
fact  of  Christ's  resurrection  as  the  basis  of  the  Chris- 
tian's hope.  Of  course  in  so  far  as  the  historical 
evidence  seems  to  warrant  the  acceptance  of  the  facts, 
it  cannot  fail  to  be  highly  important  in  influencing 
belief.  It  must,  however,  always  labor  under  a  cer- 
tain disadvantage  which  attaches  to  any  particular 
fact  of  history  as  such.  For  there  always  remains 
xfte  question  whether  after  all  our  evidence  is  really 
conclusive;  and  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  since 
the  supposed  fact  is  now  in  the  past  and  out  from 
under  our  control,  there  is  no  possibility  of  bringing 
it  to  the  test  of  fresh  and  personal  experience. 

I  shall  exclude  also  another  argument  which  is 
receiving  a  good  deal  of  attention  at  the  present 
day.  This  is  the  argument  from  spiritualism. 
Until  comparatively  a  short  time  ago  one  might 
safely  neglect  this  without  apology,  but  now  the 
tide,  it  would  appear,  has  turned.  The  Society  for 
Psychical  Research  has  undoubtedly  called  atten- 
tion to  a  group  of  experiences  which  can  hardly  be 
dismissed  off-hand  any  longer;  and  when  we  find 
men  of  high  intellectual  rank  accepting  the  authen- 
ticity of  facts  that  cannot  be  brought  under  a  —  in 
the  traditional  sense  —  natural  explanation,  it  ought 
perhaps  to  give  us  pause.  Nevertheless  I  can  hardly 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  263 

think  it  likely  we  are  destined  to  get  any  solid  foot- 
ing here,  at  any  rate  for  a  long  time  to  come.  Per- 
haps we  may  secure  evidence  that  will  help  give 
added  probability  to  a  belief  already  entertained. 
But  that  we  should  be  able  to  found  a  proof  of  im- 
mortality on  such  grounds  is  very  seriously  to  be 
doubted.  Two  features  of  the  situation  in  particu- 
lar interfere  to  prevent  this.  One  of  these  is  that 
the  facts,  if  facts  they  be,  have  to  be  sifted  out  from 
the  midst  of  an  altogether  stupefying  and  heart- 
rending mass  of  detected  blunders  and  impositions 
of  the  grossest  sort.  No  one  pretends  that  any 
save  the  merest  fraction  of  these  phenomena  are  bot1 
genuine  and  significant;  and  unluckily  the  cases 
which  have  been  exposed  stand  to  outward  appear- 
ance quite  on  a  level  with  the  supposedly  genuine 
remnant.  The  same  features  for  the  most  part 
accompany  both.  How,  then,  in  any  particular  in- 
stance are  we  to  avoid  the  lingering  doubt  whether 
after  all,  in  spite  of  all  our  tests,  this  may  not  be 
just  another  of  the  cases  of  which  we  have  met  so 
many,  —  cases  which  offered  at  first  view  unimpeach- 
able evidence,  and  which  yet  at  some  unforeseen  point 
have  broken  down  under  examination.  I  do  not 
mean  to  imply  that  for  all  we  can  at  present  say,  a 
continued  investigation  may  not  result  in  leaving 
open  the  possibility  that  there  is  a  saving  remnant 
of  spiritualistic  phenomena  that  is  genuine.  It  is 
conceivable  that  a  certain  number  of  cases  will 
succeed  in  meeting  the  most  rigid  tests.  But  I  do 


264        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

think  that  the  circumstances  under  which  this  is 
brought  about,  if  it  is  brought  about,  will  effectually 
prevent  its  ever  serving  as  a  satisfactory  basis  for 
a  great  religious  and  practical  article  of  faith.  It 
seems  psychologically  impossible  that  the  mind  should 
feel  the  certitude  it  demands  under  these  conditions. 
When  I  know  that  so  many  similar  facts  have  turned 
out  to  be  the  result  of  mistake  or  of  fraud,  and  when 
I  come  more  and  more  to  find  out  how  inconceivably 
honeycombed  with  illusion  and  self-contradiction 
human  testimony  is,  how  subtly  and  unavoidably 
error  creeps  into  the  apparently  plainest  matters  of 
fact,  it  is  inevitable  that,  after  the  most  searching 
scrutiny  has  failed  to  discredit  the  few  cases  which 
are  left,  there  should  still  for  most  of  us  remain  a 
lurking  doubt  which  renders  impossible  any  whole- 
hearted credence.  The  bad  company  which  they 
keep  must  necessarily  affect  the  reputation  of  such 
facts,  if  not  their  character.  And  the  further  point 
is  this :  that  even  if  the  facts  are  granted,  there  still 
is  a  choice  of  explanations.  The  only  admissible 
evidence  in  such  cases  must  rest  upon  the  communi- 
cation of  objective  information  which  it  would  have 
been  impossible  to  obtain  through  natural  channels. 
The  mere  seeing  of  visions  is  of  course  valueless, 
since  they  are  so  readily  to  be  explained  as  hallu- 
cinations. But  in  the  case  of  apparently  super- 
natural knowledge  there  is  still  an  hypothesis - 
telepathy,  namely— which  is  available.  It  is  true  that 
if  all  the  supposed  facts  are  admitted,  the  hypothesis 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  265 

has  to  be  strained  a  good  deal  to  fit  them.  But  after 
all,  in  a  realm  in  which  everything  is  surprising  and 
goes  beyond  what  sober  people  are  accustomed  to 
consider  probable,  a  little  added  improbability  is 
not  perhaps  fatal.  And  until  the  alternative  ex- 
planation is  excluded  —  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
this  ever  could  come  about  —  immortality  has  no 
very  secure  ground. 

Leaving  this  class  of  considerations,  therefore, 
I  shall  come  to  the  more  general  philosophical  ar- 
guments. And  without  pretending  to  go  into  any 
exact  analysis,  there  are  three  aspects  of  the  proof 
for  immortality  which  have  in  a  way  a  historical 
ground.  The  first  is  the  purely  metaphysical  treat- 
ment which  belongs  specially  to  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  to  certain  forms  of  rationalism  which  inherited 
some  of  the  features  of  the  Scholastic  philosophy. 
Here  the  stress  is  upon  the  nature  of  the  soul  as  a 
metaphysical  fact  or  entity.  The  type  of  thought 
which  this  represents  was  broken  down  largely  by 
the  growth  of  science  and  scientific  methods,  and  it 
does  not  at  present  play  any  large  part  in  discussions 
of  the  subject.  But  now  science,  in  addition  to  this 
indirect  influence  on  the  problem,  has  also  been  the 
means  of  emphasizing  one  aspect  of  it  in  particular. 
This  came  about  through  the  increased  attention 
which  it  directed  toward  the  physical  side  of  life. 
By  pointing  out  in  detail  the  way  in  which  every  phase 
of  the  conscious  or  soul  life  depends  upon,  or  at  least 
is  intimately  connected  with,  bodily  processes  of  some 


266        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION   OF  THE   WORLD 

sort,  it  naturally  seemed  to  strengthen  the  presump- 
tion that  consciousness  cannot  exist  at  all  without 
its  bodily  accompaniment.  This  in  turn  has  called 
forth  a  special  emphasis  upon  another  set  of  consider- 
ations which  in  a  general  way  may  be  called  the 
moral  argument;  and  this  argument,  though  with 
many  variations,  may  be  regarded  as  the  central  one 
at  the  present  time.  I  wish  to  take  up  these  aspects 
of  the  question  separately,  passing  over  the  first 
two  somewhat  lightly  and  dogmatically. 

What  has  been  called  the  metaphysical  argument 
goes  back  to  the  nature  of  the  soul  as  a  thing  in  itself. 
From  the  properties  which  belong  to  this  soul  sub- 
stance it  is  supposed  that  we  can  deduce  something 
of  its  destiny.  In  particular  its  indivisibility  has 
been  thought  to  guarantee  its  integrity,  since  only 
that  which  has  parts  can  be  decomposed  and  de- 
stroyed. Perhaps  it  is  enough  to  say  that  this  con- 
ception of  the  soul  as  a  substantial  entity,  indivisible 
and  eternal,  lying  behind  and  separate  from  the 
phenomena  of  consciousness  and  persisting  change- 
less through  their  eternal  change,  is  a  conception 
which  modern  philosophy  has  not  so  much  disproved 
as  discarded,  because  it  has  been  discovered  to  be 
meaningless  and  useless.  We  need,  it  is  true,  to  find 
a  unity  to  the  life  of  the  self.  But  such  a  separable 
entity  unites  nothing,  explains  nothing.  It  is  a 
mere  abstraction,  which  has  no  content  when  we 
try  to  grasp  it,  and  which  consequently  has  ceased 
to  play  any  large  part  in  recent  thought. 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  267 

Has  then  the  metaphysical  argument  no  validity? 
From  one  point  of  view  I  should  say  absolutely  none 
at  all.  In  so  far  as  it  embodies  the  attractive,  but 
essentially  delusive,  ideal  of  attaining  a  demon- 
strative certainty  by  means  of  a  process  of  logical 
reasoning,  it  is  and  always  is  bound  to  be  entirely 
futile.  Nevertheless  it  has  a  motive  back  of  it  which 
is  quite  legitimate.  It  tries  to  fill  the  need  of  find- 
ing some  permanent  fact  to  which  to  attach  the  con- 
scious life,  which  shall  not  share  the  instability  and 
ephemeralness  of  this  life,  or  of  the  bodily  structure 
which  is  its  apparent  foundation.  Such  a  demand 
will  have  apparently  to  be  met  if  immortality  is  to 
be  established ;  but  it  will  be  well  to  look  for  some 
other  and  less  debatable  way  of  doing  this. 

And  this  leads  to  the  materialistic  argument  whose 
refutation  has  usually  occupied  a  considerable  share 
of  the  energies  of  the  defender  of  immortality.  It 
must  be  premised  that  any  advantage  which  is  gained 
here  by  the  upholder  of  the  doctrine  is  purely  nega- 
tive. At  best  it  only  shows  that  the  continuance 
of  the  soul  life  after  the  death  of  the  body  involves 
no  contradiction  or  impossibility,  and  this  by  itself 
furnishes,  of  course,  no  evidence  whatever  for  the  fact 
of  continuance.  But  with  this  limitation,  the  answer 
to  the  materialistic  assumption  is  plain.  Indeed 
when  the  question  is  made  clearly  one  of  possi- 
bility, a  sober  science  can  hardly  hesitate  to  admit 
its  lack  of  any  right  to  speak  with  authority.  Science 
may  say,  and  perhaps  be  perfectly  right  in  saying, 


268        RELIGIOUS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

that  from  the  standpoint  of  the  scientific  experience 
she  knows  nothing  of  consciousness  except  in  con- 
nection with  certain  organic  structures.  It  is  indeed 
an  undeniable  fact  that  there  is  a  break  in  our  lives 
which  our  direct  knowledge  does  not  serve  to  bridge. 
But  what  reason  can  be  given  in  the  nature  of  things 
why  life  might  not  be  continued  under  different, 
though  at  present  unknown,  conditions?  There  is 
no  greater  likelihood  a  priori  that  a  unitary  stream 
of  consciousness  should  be  confined  to  one  particular 
body  than  for  the  opposite  hypothesis.  The  mere 
fact  that  conditions  which  attend  life  as  we  know  it 
do  not  persevere  beyond  a  certain  point  is  therefore 
undecisive.  There  is  no  meaning  to  a  merely  gen- 
eral improbability  in  such  a  case,  except  on  the  not 
very  likely  assumption  that  our  present  knowledge 
is  fairly  exhaustive  of  the  universe.  The  argument 
is  therefore  an  argument  from  ignorance.  Of  course, 
once  again,  it  is  not  shown  that  there  is  such  a  con- 
tinuance of  life.  But  if  we  should  have  any  reason 
at  all  for  believing  that  there  is,  the  fact  of  our  ig- 
norance of  its  conditions  furnishes  no  positive  ground 
for  refusing  to  give  ear  to  this  evidence.  We  should 
be  constrained  to  this  only  in  case  we  were  to  accept 
a  certain  crude  form  of  materialistic  theory  —  the 
assumption  that  matter  as  we  know  it  is  the  ultimate 
reality,  and  that  consciousness  has  its  wholly  suffi- 
cient cause  and  explanation  in  the  particular  group 
of  atoms  whose  combination  forms  our  body.  Such 
a  materialism  is  at  present  discredited.  As  onposed, 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  269 

on  the  one  hand,  to  its  carrying  back  reality  to  inde- 
pendent material  particles,  the  unessential  product 
of  whose  combination  all  higher  facts  of  the  con- 
scious life  are,  philosophy  tends  to  lay  stress  on  the 
reality  of  the  whole  as  the  supreme  fact,  by  reference 
to  which  each  minor  fact  has  to  be  explained,  and 
with  which  it  stands  inherently  and  vitally  connected. 
As  opposed,  again,  to  the  assignment  of  material 
qualities  to  this  reality  as  its  innermost  structure, 
most  modern  thought  is  agreed  either  to  find  this 
nature  in  that  which  is  akin  to  consciousness  and  to 
man,  or  else  to  hold  that  it  is  unknown  to  us,  and  that 
what  we  call  mind  and  matter  are  both  illusory 
appearances.  But  in  either  case  the  possibility  of 
immortality  is  secured.  It  lies,  not  in  an  individual 
soul  substance,  but  in  the  unitary  world-ground  on 
which  all  things  alike,  material  processes  as  well 
as  conscious,  depend.  That  consciousness  exists  at 
all  is  enough  to  show  that  it  is  not  an  arbitrary 
product,  but  is  somehow  essentially  related  to  reality. 
The  only  question  is  whether  the  nature  of  reality 
really  calls  for  its  continued  existence;  if  so,  it  is 
wholly  gratuitous  for  us  to  find  difficulties  about  the 
possibility.  At  present  consciousness  exists  in  con- 
nection with  one  particular  expression  of  reality 
which  we  call  a  body.  But  if  the  body  is  not  an 
independent  whole,  and  so  is  not  the  sole  efficient 
agent  in  the  production  of  consciousness,  if  the  source 
of  this  is  rather  in  some  real  sense  reality  at  large, 
what  is  to  hinder  the  relation  of  my  consciousness  to 


270         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

reality  from  being  such  that  it  should  still  go  on,  with 
only  its  point  of  connection  shifted  ?  There  is  the 
whole  wide  universe  to  furnish  such  a  point  of  con- 
nection. Why  should  this  particular  relationship 
which  now  holds  necessarily  be  the  only  possible  one, 
so  that  its  severance  will  annihilate  one  of  the  terms 
related.  Certainly  if  we  are  agnostics  and  hold 
to  an  ultimate  ignorance  about  things,  our  ignorance 
will  prevent  our  pronouncing  dogmatically  against 
such  a  possibility.  And  if  we  accept  a  conscious 
world -ground  —  God  —  there  will  be  still  less  reason 
to  deny  it.  To  the  nature,  then,  of  God,  or  of  the 
world-whole,  on  whom  our  lives  in  some  sort  depend, 
we  may  look  for  the  possibility  of  permanence  which 
immortality  requires,  instead  of  to  a  hypothetical  soul 
conceived  as  a  separate  and  independent  substance. 
For  since  God  is  still  necessary  to  uphold  the  soul, 
we  lose  nothing  by  going  back  to  him  directly,  and 
we  avoid  the  difficulty  that  comes  from  interpolating 
a  fact  that  is  unthinkable. 

But  this,  once  more,  is  a  purely  negative  result. 
Suppose  the  possibility  has  been  found ;  are  there  any 
positive  grounds  for  supposing  that  it  is  more  than  a 
possibility?  Such  evidence,  if  it  is  forthcoming,  will 
have  to  be  looked  for,  I  think,  in  what  in  one  form 
or  another  has  been  commonly  known  as  the  moral 
argument,  and  to  this  therefore  -we  may  now  turn. 

In  the  earlier  discussions  about  immortality  there 
was  a  disposition  to  make  the  question  settle  about 
the  matter  of  rewards  and  punishments.  Since  men 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  271 

do  not  get  their  deserts  in  this  world,  it  is  found  nec- 
essary to  postulate  another  in  which  to  even  matters 
up.  This  undoubtedly  falls  in  with  and  appeals  to 
a  certain  natural  instinct  in  us.  The  plain  man  is 
apt  to  find  a  real  force  to  the  argument.  But  also 
there  is  no  doubt  that  we  are  disposed  to  insist  less 
upon  this  statement  of  it  than  we  once  were.  It 
has  the  disadvantage  that  whereas  it  is  intended  to 
be  the  expression  of  an  ethical  need,  it  can  too  readily 
be  turned  in  a  way  which  leaves  the  appearance  of 
superior  ethical  disinterestedness  on  the  other  side. 
Is  it  necessary,  we  are  asked,  that  men  should  re- 
quire a  bribe  to  do  well?  Is  not  that  the  worthier 
attitude  which  says:  I  will  do  right  because  it  is 
right,  and  I  will  get  a  satisfaction  from  the  doing 
which  is  higher  than  any  extraneous  reward  could 
give?  Is  our  love  of  goodness  so  flimsy  that  we 
should  throw  it  all  aside  if  we  were  convinced  that 
certain  future  consequences  were  not  to  flow  from 
it?  Is  not  that  a  doing  of  good  just  for  the  sake 
of  the  reward?  And  if  the  good  act  is  here  and 
now  the  worthier  and  more  satisfying  act,  why  insist 
upon  what  would  weaken  if  not  destroy  its  moral 
character,  and  make  it  simply  a  matter  of  expediency  ? 
So  of  evil.  Evil  loses  here,  and  inevitably,  the  true 
satisfaction  of  life,  just  because  it  is  evil.  To  insist 
that  it  should  meet  also  with  certain  external  con- 
sequences which  sometimes  fail  in  this  world  —  may 
not  this  be  simply  the  spirit  of  personal  vindictive- 
ness  and  revenge? 


272         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

Undoubtedly  there  is  an  understanding  of  the 
argument  to  which  this  is  a  real  answer.  But  its 
upholder  will  be  apt  to  go  farther  and  make  some 
such  reply  as  this  in  turn:  When  I  maintain  the 
necessity  of  a  future  evening-up  process,  I  do  not 
mean  that  there  is  no  value  to  goodness  if  it  does 
not  bring  with  it  material  rewards  of  happiness. 
And  yet  for  all  that,  to  constitute  the  perfect  bloom 
of  virtue  there  is  need  of  a  triumphant  belief  in  its 
correspondence  with  the  heart  of  things,  a  convic- 
tion that  righteousness  rules  the  world,  and  that  in 
following  it  I  am  putting  myself  in  line  with  the 
deepest  forces  of  the  universe.  Surely  it  is  a  short- 
sighted tendency  which  supposes,  for  example  with 
Maeterlinck,  that  human  morality  can  dissever 
itself  permanently  from  the  background  of  reality, 
and  still  retain  its  power  in  a  universe  which  we  are 
convinced  is  fundamentally  unmoral.  But  how 
can  this  belief  in  the  ultimateness  of  reality  be  main- 
tained, unless  I  can  convince  myself  that  the  world 
is  such  a  world  that  in  it  righteousness  and  well- 
being  in  the  widest  sense  are  finally  identical? 
The  inner  testimony  of  my  consciousness  to  the  worth 
of  virtue  is  of  value  when  confirmed  by  an  outer 
harmony  in  the  world  at  large.  But  can  this  inner 
testimony  prevail  if  it  comes  in  conflict  with  the  outer 
course  of  events?  Will  not  the  contradiction  in- 
evitably affect  our  belief  in  virtue,  or  at  any  rate  our 
joy  in  it  ?  For  can  virtue  in  the  end  stand  justified 

our  minds  except  as  it  does  find  that  external  con- 


THE   PROBLEM  OF   IMMORTALITY  273 

firmation  for  which  immortality  tries  to  find  a  place, 
and  which  will  enable  us  to  think  of  it  as  bound  up 
in  the  innnermost  constitution  of  the  world? 

But  now  again  the  query  may  be  raised :  Granted 
that  the  ethical  life  must  be  vindicated  in  an  objec- 
tive way,  just  what  is  it  that  the  ethical  demand 
requires?  Does  the  validity  of  righteousness,  that 
is,  really  stand  or  fall  with  the  stability  of  the  indi- 
vidual life?  or  may  not  that  be  irrelevant  to  the 
existence  of  a  thoroughly  ethical  world  ?  Righteous- 
ness must  conquer  objectively  if  it  is  to  be  justified. 
But  is  it  not  enough  that  my  act  should  help  on  the 
final  victory,  even  if  I  do  not  live  to  see  it  and  par- 
ticipate in  its  rewards  ?  That  good  does  not  triumph 
with  any  particular  man,  that  I  do  not  reap  the 
fruits  of  my  virtue  or  my  unjust  deeds,  does  not,  it 
is  said,  mean  that  virtue  is  not  a  reality,  provided 
there  is  a  gradual  achievement  of  the  right  in  the 
larger  course  of  the  world.  Is  not  this  where  we 
should  look  for  our  proof?  The  world  is  a  good 
world,  not  because  any  individual's  rewards  are 
exactly  proportioned  to  his  merits,  but  because  in 
the  universe  as  a  whole  truth  and  righteousness  are 
progressively  realized,  iniquity  is  inevitably  doomed. 
In  the  light  of  this  higher  ideal  the  demand  for  a 
personal  immortality  appears  mean  and  selfish. 
Such  immortality  is  a  matter  of  indifference.  Let 
us  put  ourselves  at  the  standpoint  of  the  whole,  and 
see  it  as  a  great  process  through  which  righteousness 
works  itself  out  to  a  glorious  issue.  What  matter0 

T 


274        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

it,  from  the  height  of  this  vantage  ground,  whether 
I  live  to  see  the  triumph  of  the  cause  for  which  I  have 
toiled,  if  I  am  persuaded  that  the  forces  of  the  uni- 
verse are  on  my  side,  and  that  my  act  is  destined  to 
have  its  place  in  the  final  victory  of  right  ?  Is  not 
this  the  only  immortality  that  is  worthy  the  name 
—  an  immortality  of  influence,  purged  of  the  gross- 
ness  of  individual  longings  and  selfish  desires? 
And  so  too  of  the  evil  deed.  What  greater  punish- 
ment can  it  have  than  that  it  should  stand  eternally 
annulled  and  condemned,  that  it  should  be  futile, 
worthless,  impotent,  and  forever  discredited  in  the 
economy  of  the  universe? 

It  is  here,  I  think,  that  the  critical  point  of  the 
question  lies.  In  order  to  state  it  more  clearly,  let 
me  distinguish  two  separate  aspects  or  steps  of  the 
argument.  In  the  first  place,  it  implies  that  there  is 
something  in  life  that  makes  it  worth  while,  that 
gives  it  a  value  which  is  more  than  fleeting,  and  so 
leads  us  to  justify  this  value  by  assigning  to  it  a  per- 
manent, an  enduring  reality.  This  is  not  to  any 
great  degree  a  thing  that  can  be  proved  by  argument. 
It  comes  from  life,  not  from  logic;  and  unless  to 
any  particular  man  life  has  brought  a  sense  of  its 
own  possible  worth,  there  is  no  basis  for  an  argument 
that  shall  convince  him.  It  is  the  vital  contribution 
of  Christianity  to  the  problem  that  it  has  been  the 
great  instrument  for  bringing  home  to  men  this  feel- 
ing of  the  divineness  of  life.  But  now  it  is  not  the 
this  which  is  most  characteristic  of  recent 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  275 

discussions.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  a  general  dis- 
position to  admit,  and  even  to  emphasize,  the  ethical 
ideal,  and  the  attributes  of  worth  which  it  involves. 
The  main  point  at  issue  is  the  further  question : 
Does  the  justification  of  this  ethical  worth  require 
the  permanence  of  the  individual  life,  or  is  it  satis- 
fied with  the  preservation  and  triumph  of  ethical 
values  in  the  large  —  in  the  race  or  in  the  universe  ? 
Is  it  after  all  so  clear  that  the  ethical  world  is  a  real 
possibility  apart  from  just  that  continued  participa- 
tion in  it  of  the  connected  individual  life  which  the 
critic  of  immortality  sets  aside  as  an  unessential 
detail  ? 

And  first  there  is  a  preliminary  misunderstanding 
that  may  need  to  be  removed.  The  injunction  to 
turn  away  from  the  question  of  a  future  life  as  pos- 
sessing no  real  interest  often  gets  a  force  which  does 
not  rightly  belong  to  it  on  its  merits,  as  a  reaction 
against  an  exaggerated  other-worldliness.  It  may 
be  said,  as  it  is  said  very  commonly  at  the  present  day, 
that  immortality  has  ceased  to  be  a  matter  of  real 
concern  to  men.  What  should  occupy  us  is  not  the 
future  life,  but  the  present.  Nothing  will  ever  be 
any  more  real  than  the  present  now  is.  To  empty 
it  of  value  except  as  a  preparation  for  the  future  is 
to  place  the  end  of  living  in  something  that  never 
arrives.  Now  I  have  an  entire  sympathy  with  this 
in  so  far  as  it  is  merely  a  protest  against  the  religious 
attitude  which  makes  the  future  life  somehow  more 
real  than  the  present,  and  which  turns  the  interest 


276         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

away  from  the  present  world  and  the  present  moment 
to  centre  it  upon  a  heavenly  existence.  By  all 
means  let  us  live  in  the  present,  and  recognize  that 
eternity  lies  round  about  us.  Nevertheless  we  should 
not  make  the  obvious  mistake  of  confounding  such 
an  admission  with  the  implication  that  on  this  very 
present  interest  the  future  has  no  bearing.  When 
in  educational  ideals,  for  example,  the  child's  enjoy- 
ment of  his  immediate  activity  is  sacrificed  in  favor 
of  a  preparation  for  duties  which  are  not  yet  arisen, 
we  are  making  a  blunder.  But  it  does  not  follow, 
therefore,  that  the  child  should  live  simply  from 
moment  to  moment.  In  order  to  give  consistency 
and  weight  to  present  life,  it  is  necessary  that  more 
far-reaching  interests  should  centre  about  it  and  be 
served  by  it.  Ideally  it  is  quite  possible  so  to  relate 
the  future  to  the  present  as  not  to  displace  this,  but 
rather  to  enhance  its  value.  And  just  as  the  future, 
represented  by  our  larger  and  more  permanent  ends 
in  this  life,  may  be  made  to  deepen  the  meaning  of 
the  present,  not  destroy  it,  so  it  is  conceivable  that 
the  belief  in  a  life  to  come  should  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  our  activities  in  this  world,  and  be  necessary 
to  the  full  realization  of  their  present  possibilities. 
Making  due  allowance  then  for  this  relative  truth, 
we  come  back  again  to  the  main  question.  Is  a 
human  life  of  value  simply  as  it  enters  into  and 
helps  work  out  a  process,  or  law,  or  scheme  of  de- 
velopment, which  is  impersonal,  or  at  least  uniper- 
sonal  ?  Or,  on  the  contrary,  does  the  essence  of  the 


THE   PROBLEM  OF   IMMORTALITY  277 

ethical  world,  and  so  of  reality,  lie  in  the  relation- 
ships of  persons,  distinct  individuals,  who  can  find 
no  meaning  in  terms  of  worth  and  value  except  as 
this  personal  element  is  emphasized?  Let  me  give 
a  suggestion  of  the  answer  which  a  defender  of  im- 
mortality might  make  to  this  question. 

We  talk  a  great  deal  about  progress  and  develop- 
ment, such  an  one  might  say;  but  do  we  ever  try 
to  realize  what  such  a  concept  means,  and  what  con- 
tent it  could  have,  apart  from  personal  relationships 
to  individuals  and  the  personal  feelings  which  these 
call  forth  ?  Are  we  not  in  danger  of  making  a  fetich 
of  progress  in  a  way  that  shall  empty  it  of  signifi- 
cance? In  the  philosopher  whose  gaze  is  so  fixed 
upon  the  eternal  Spirit  realizing  itself  in  the  world 
that  this  realization  of  the  whole  seems  the  only  im- 
portant thing;  in  the  evolutionist  for  whom  the 
individual  is  a  mere  incident  in  the  life  of  the  race; 
in  the  literary  aestheticism  which  glorifies  the  Idea 
regardless  of  its  personal  setting ;  in  the  imperialism 
which  in  its  zeal  for  civilization  can  without  com- 
punction trample  under  foot  individuals  and  nations ; 
in  the  deification  of  the  strong  man,  the  Ubermensch, 
—  we  have  tendencies  of  which  we  may  fairly  ask 
whether  they  are  not  in  danger  of  losing  the  very 
essence  of  the  worth  of  life.  We  may  grant  that  they 
emphasize  certain  very  real  sides  of  experience,  and 
that  there  is  a  sentimentalism  against  which  they 
represent  a  healthy  reaction.  But  is  not  their  em- 
phasis dangerously  misplaced?  Is  not  our  modern 


278         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

doctrine  that  God  is  progress  likely  to  obscure  the 
more  inclusive  truth  that  God  is  love?  For  love 
is  a  relationship  which  does  not  stop  with  those 
universal  qualities  of  a  man  that  make  him  simply 
an  actor  in  the  world  history.  It  clings  to  the  core 
of  individuality  itself,  and  will  be  satisfied  with  just 
this  as  a  living  and  continuous  person  whose  place 
no  one  else  can  wholly  take.  It  is  this  human  feeling, 
not  the  humanitarian,  which  gives  value  and  validity 
to  life  and  conduct.  It  is  the  spirit  which  does  not 
make  of  men  and  women  tools  for  working  out  a 
principle  or  law  or  impersonal  right;  it  loves  man 
because  it  loves  men,  and  it  never  can  make  such 
a  personal  relationship  to  this  and  that  man  in  partic- 
ular a  secondary  and  unessential  thing.  Not  that 
the  contrary  attitude  is  without  its  own  emotional 
appeal.  It  may  seem  on  the  surface  to  have  a  cer- 
tain touch  of  grandeur  and  sublimity  which  thrills 
us  for  the  moment.  "Personality,  individuality — • 
the  ghosts  of  a  dream  in  a  dream.  Life  infinite 
only  there  is,  and  all  that  appears  to  be  is  but  the 
thrilling  of  it,  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  earth,  sky,  and 
sea,  and  mind  and  man,  and  space  and  time."  But 
when  we  examine  our  rhetoric  soberly  and  coolly, 
what  content  do  we  really  find  that  justifies  our 
emotion,  beyond  a  certain  aesthetic  pleasure  in  the 
contemplation,  itself  not  of  the  highest  order  because 
it  is  so  entirely  abstract  and  formless.  When  we 
try  actually  to  realize  concretely  the  nature  of  such 
a  supposed  value  apart  from  personality,  from  human 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  279 

relationships  and  fellowships,  we  find  in  it  as  little 
permanent  power  to  satisfy  us  as  we  find  in  the 
Oriental  civilization  which  represents  the  same  ideal 
of  a  degradation  of  personality  put  into  actual  prac- 
tice. The  Western  type  of  the  same  attitude  is  more 
virile,  no  doubt.  Nevertheless  it  is  equally  unsatis- 
fying to  one  who  is  not  content  with  loose  rhetoric 
and  surface  understanding,  but  who  tries  to  pene- 
trate to  the  real  content  of  the  thing,  and  bring  it 
home  to  himself  in  concrete  and  human  terms.  Such 
is  the  modern  worship  of  force  with  its  underlying 
materialism,  of  great  movements,  irresistible  ten- 
dencies, and  manifest  destinies,  so  long  as  they  ac- 
complish something,  no  matter  whether  the  change 
approves  itself  or  not  to  the  human  sense  of  worth 
and  the  human  conscience.  The  novels  of  the  late 
Mr.  Norris  afford  a  good  example  of  this  attitude 
in  a  crude  but  effective  form,  with  their  subordina- 
tion of  the  ethical,  and  their  deification  of  the  brute 
forces  of  nature  as  typified,  for  example,  by  the 
Wheat.  No  doubt  this  appeals  to  something  primi- 
tive in  us.  But  is  the  primitive  and  the  savage  finally 
to  interpret  human  life  ?  And  when  again  we  bring 
to  bear  a  really  human  interpretation,  can  what  we 
are  called  upon  crudely  to  admire  and  rest  upon  bear 
at  all  the  test  of  rational  criticism?  There  is  some- 
thing childish  in  the  tendency  to  suppose  that  mere 
change  is  admirable,  no  matter  even  if  it  leads  to 
nothing,  and  it  is  none  the  less  childish  because 
the  change  happens  to  be  on  a  vast  scale. 


280         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

This  briefly,  then,  is  the  query  on  which  an  argu- 
ment may  be  based:  First,  can  righteousness,  or 
progress,  or  whatever  it  may  be  termed,  have  any 
real  content  save  as  it  is  grounded  in  the  personal 
relationship  which  on  the  side  of  feeling  is  love? 
Apart  from  this,  are  we  not  resting  on  a  survival  of 
the  old  deification  of  abstractions  ?  Activity,  strenu- 
ousness,  combat,  achievement  —  these  are  good ; 
but  will  they  not  fail  in  the  end  if  divorced  from 
fellowship  ?  And,  second,  if  this  is  so,  can  we  accept 
the  severance  of  the  personal  relationship  in  which 
the  whole  gist  of  the  matter  lies,  and  still  be  able  to 
justify  the  worth  of  life  to  ourselves,  in  feeling  or  in 
calm  reflection?  The  charge  is  made  that  the  de- 
mand for  immortality  is  a  selfish  demand,  and  that 
a  true  devotion  would  make  us  content  to  lose  our- 
selves in  the  good  of  the  whole  or  of  the  race.  But 
this  is  not  the  deepest  source  of  our  demand,  and  it 
does  not  truly  represent  the  force  of  the  argument, 
unless  love  can  be  reduced  to  selfishness.  That 
which  raises  the  most  passionate  protest  against  the 
extinction  of  personality  is  not  the  wish  that  I  may 
continue.  It  is  the  thought  that  he,  my  friend,  with 
all  his  powers  of  mind  and  heart,  should  have  come 
to  be  only  to  cease  again  to  be ;  that  he  should  have 
passed  forever  beyond  the  possibility  of  that  personal 
contact  and  union  which  is  the  core  of  life. 

Doubtless  the  question  will  come  up  once  more: 
Does  not  humanity,  the  race,  the  universe,  still  afford 
a  worthy  field  of  endeavor  even  though  the  individual 


THE   PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  281 

man  disappears  ?  I  am  not  unaware  of  the  danger 
of  meeting  life  too  timidly,  and  of  being  too  ready 
to  throw  away  what  is  still  a  substantial  good  be- 
cause we  cannot  get  all  that  we  should  like.  It  is 
well  to  be  brave  in  the  face  of  whatever  life  may 
bring.  But  there  is  some  risk,  too,  that  courage  may 
pass  into  hardness  and  callousness,  and  that  is  not 
so  well.  Are  we  sure  that  resignation  here  does  not 
mean  a  loss  too  serious  to  accept?  I  have  done  all 
I  can  hope  if  I  have  pointed  out  the  issue  involved. 
Can  the  terms  which  stand  for  value  to  us  avoid  be- 
coming an  abstraction  except  as  they  go  back  to  the 
fact  of  personality?  and  can  personality  bear  the 
weight  of  this  responsibility  without  permanence? 
Do  we  try  to  find  that  permanence  in  humanity? 
But  the  race  itself  is  mortal.  The  day  will  come 
when  the  world  and  all  that  it  contains  will  pass 
away;  and  how  can  that  which  comes  to  an  end  be 
an  eternal  principle  of  justification?  But  even  if 
the  race  were  immortal,  that  would  not  meet  the  de- 
mands of  love.  It  is  not  enough  that  an  impersonal 
influence  should  continue,  or  that  other  friends 
should  take  the  place  of  the  one  who  is  lost.  It  is 
here,  if  anywhere,  that  we  shall  find  a  value  that  will 
appeal  to  us  as  ultimate ;  and  if  we  get  no  solid  foot- 
ing here,  how  can  we  hope  to  in  those  larger  and 
abstracter  terms  —  humanity,  and  the  progress  of 
the  whole?  And  how  can  that  be  ultimate  which 
is  ever  being  passed  over  from  one  embodiment 
to  another  ?  Can  love  thus  be  cut  loose  from  its 


282         RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE   WORLD 

object  ?  The  recognition  of  relativity  and  finiteness 
in  love,  as  inherent  in  and  necessary  to  it,  is  bound 
to  destroy  its  divineness.  To  put  our  human  re- 
lationships on  the  plane  of  the  Epicurean  friendship, 
—  something  we  are  to  utilize  as  a  pleasant  and  im- 
portant episode  of  life,  but  be  ready  to  put  aside  with 
quiet  acquiescence  when  it  has  served  its  turn,  — 
are  we  not  right  in  feeling  this  to  be  less  than  the 
final  meaning?  Is  the  great  love,  the  love  that  goes 
beyond  the  prudent  needs  of  effective  workmanship, 
really  a  mistake,  and  should  we  be  wiser  if  we  were 
to  sink  ourselves  in  our  work,  in  an  impersonal 
activity  or  process  of  life,  and  look  upon  men  and 
women  as  just  the  temporary  phases  which  this 
world  activity  assumes?  We  are  not  always  true 
to  such  an  insight,  no  doubt.  We  allow  selfishness 
to  break  the  ties  that  have  been  closest,  and  time  to 
obliterate  the  strongest  feelings.  But  in  a  question 
such  as  this  it  should  be,  not  our  ordinary  self,  but 
our  best  self,  that  forms  the  basis  of  our  judgment ; 
not  what  the  average  man  practices,  but  what  seems 
to  be  the  goal  of  the  highest  and  most  truly  human 
attainment.  And  do  we  not  feel  that  this  charge 
of  inconstancy  and  forgetfulness  in  our  human  fel- 
lowships is  a  cause  for  shame,  that  it  marks  a  failure 
to  be  what  at  our  best  we  should  like  to  be?  And 
if  this  is  true  from  the  human  side,  it  has  an  equal 
force  from  the  divine.  It  is  true  that  in  God  we 
should  have  what  is  eternal  in  existence,  as  opposed 
to  the  ephemeral  existence  that  belongs  to  the  human 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  IMMORTALITY  283 

race.  And  the  need  we  have  ethically  of  falling 
back  on  God  shows  how  necessary  to  the  justification 
of  value  permanence  is.  Do  away  wholly  with  any 
such  eternal  conservator  of  values,  and  how  long  could 
they  retain  any  touch  or  quality  of  the  divine  ?  But 
because  God  is  eternal  in  existence  he  need  not,  for 
all  that,  have  a  value  that  we  should  recognize  as 
eternal.  If  values  do  have  their  root  in  the  relation- 
ships of  persons,  there  not  only  is  the  difficulty  in 
imagining  how  they  could  exist  and  be  transferred 
when  their  very  source  is  gone.  In  relation  to  God 
the  same  thing  has  another  side.  Could  we  really 
respect  a  God  who  found  his  felicity  in  an  end  which 
got  its  realization  ultimately  only  in  his  own  self- 
centred  consciousness ;  for  whom  love  or  fellowship 
meant  merely  a  temporary  or  passing  phase  of  his 
experience,  whose  object  was  called  into  existence 
only  to  be  dismissed  again  from  the  scene  ?  We  may 
be  willing  to  give  up  our  private  claims  in  the  per- 
manent good  of  existence,  to  be  damned  for  the  glory 
of  God ;  but  would  a  God  who  claimed  the  sacrifice 
be  worthy  of  it?  Does  not  love  in  God  imply  a 
personal  relationship  which,  in  its  particularity,  is 
not  an  incident  of  his  purposes,  but  fundamental  in 
them? 

I  have  based  the  argument  upon  the  demands  of 
feeling.  The  suggestion  has  been  that  the  funda- 
mental source  of  value,  at  any  rate  of  social  and 
religious  value,  is  to  be  looked  for  in  personality, 
as  involving  a  relationship  of  individuals  in  self- 


284        RELIGIOUS   CONCEPTION  OF  THE  WORLD 

conscious  and  meaningful  cooperation ;  and  that  this 
claims  an  eternal  worth,  not  as  tributary  to  an  im- 
personal process,  but  as  that  which  itself  lends  to 
the  process  validity.  It  is  true  that  this  demand  that 
the  world  should  be  such  as  to  meet  the  requirements 
of  feeling  is  a  postulate ;  but  so  too  is  the  claim  that 
the  world  should  be  a  rational  world;  and  I  have 
already  tried  to  show  that  the  one  is  as  valid  a  pos- 
tulate as  the  other.  Both  ideals  we  accept  simply 
because  we  never  shall  be  satisfied  so  long  as  they 
are  unattained.  But  now  if  the  main  contention  of 
my  whole  argument  is  not  mistaken,  this  same  con- 
ception of  personality  is  the  one  best  fitted  to  stand 
in  a  purely  intellectual  formulation  of  reality  as  well. 
The  coincidence  of  the  two  lines  of  argument  may 
perhaps  be  held  to  give  some  added  force  to  each. 


INDEX 


Absolute,  the,    37    ff.;      166    f.; 

176  ff.;  259  f. 
Activity,  concept  of,  187  S. 
Agnosticism,  37  ff.;  180  ff. 

Balfour,  105,  128. 
Berkeley,  125. 

Causation,  141  ff.;  167  ff. 
Conservation  of  Energy,  170. 
Creation,  concept  of,  164  f. ;  229  f. 

Design,  argument  from,  93  ff. 
Determinism,  207  ff. 

Emotion,  53  ff.;  63  ff. 
Evil,  198;  231  ff. 

Fatalism,  207;  221  f. 

Feeling,  its  relation  to  knowledge, 

53  ff- 
Freedom,  198  ff. 

God,  nature  of,  162  ff.;  193  ff. 

Hume,  70;  141. 
Huxley,  44. 

Ideals,  57  ff.;  104  f.;  282. 
Imitation,  30. 
Immaterialism,  124  ff. 
Immortality,  261  ff. 
Innate  ideas,  6. 
Interaction,  171. 

James,  William,  64,  225. 

Knowledge,  function  of,    54    f.; 

187  ff. 
Knowledge,  representative  theory 

of,  18  ff.;  132  f. 

Knowledge,  transcendence  of,  1 7  ff . ; 
31  ff.;  51  f.;  162;  194. 


Law,  conception  of,  10  ff.;  117  f.; 
130;  140  ff.;  173  ff. 

Materialism,  268  f. 
Natural  selection,  94;  107  ff. 
Objective  world,  belief  in,  17  ff.; 

27  ff-;  56  f. 

Optimism,  233  ff.;  242  ff. 

Pantheism,  153  ff. 

Parallelism,  170  ff. 

Personality,  276  ff. 

Pessimism,  236  ff. 

Philosophy,  method  of,  50  ff.;  75. 

Philosophy,  nature  of,  74  f.;  78; 

83- 

Pragmatism,  21  ff.;  35  f.;  199. 
Presuppositions,  nature  of,  8. 

Reason,  nature  of,  70  ff . ;  206  f. 
Religion,  nature  of,  79  ff. 
Religion  and  history,  84  ff. 
Relativity  of  knowledge,  38;  177  ff. 
Responsibility,  236  ff.;  257  ff. 

Scepticism,  41  ff. 

Schopenhauer,  237. 

Self,  idea  of,  161  f.;  186  ff. 

Selves,  belief  in  other,  22  ff. ;  28  ff. 

Solipsism,  27. 

Soul,  the,  266;  270. 

Spencer,  38;  177. 

Spinoza,  79;  115. 

Teleology,    93   ff.;  117;  146   ff.; 

190  f. 

Theism,  arguments  for,  121  ff. 
Truth,  nature  of,  21;   35  ff. 
Truth,  tests  of,  45  ff.;  75  ff. 


Will,  187  ff.;  208  ff. 


285 


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